Mute Bystander | 29 May 2016 2:51 a.m. PST |
Just came to an early morning conclusion, there is a pint of diminishing return in anything, even military miniatures. I realized there is less and less satisfaction in my hobby in some ways. And yet it is too much of "me" to just be denied. Oh, I am not abandoning the hobby just a reevaluation of what and why I do the hobby. Such is a good thing at my age. I am happy with my current SF armies using 1970s/1980s figures for 25mm skirmishing, I have plenty of 6mm figures for combined arms battles, and there seems to be a vast burgeoning of 15mm figures for those mid level battles. There always will be potential for "gap fill" even when there realistically is no gap. . I am unsure if 3mm SF will take off in my life time but one can hope. With the growth of 15mm fantasy I find that with my thousands of 25mm figures, I actually will need to reduce my armies over these last decades of life. Now if 6mm or 3mm fantasy mushrooms this will only facilitate the larger for smaller exchange rate but who knows? Historically I am more in a quandary, there are few eras that entice me to add or expand armies. I am a gamer not a painter so the wide range of larger than 25mm figures is not a draw like it once was. There is my niche North American Spanish empire in the 1680 to 1775 interest, Nothing from WW1 to today except for my 1/600th aerial stuff seems enticing. Nothing before gunpowder is a widely introduced is even in my collection except for fantasy anymore. Line them up and charge seems resoundingly boring. A good range of 3mm Lacewars figures might peak my interest… Where to go? What to do? VSF? Well I have my 25mm Tarzan and Asian monks heavily in process for gaming and I have started a 15mm Tarzan grouping. Steampunk themed VSF seems unattractive as I have seen it played but as an extension of my current VSF it has some weak traction. Spaceship combat is very much in a deteriorating orbit right now. It either seems like naval in space (zzzzz) or oddly shaped aerial gaming. So what is the endgame of my (a) hobby? That I'll be the subject of another post to follow but fel free to comment if you find yourself wondering about where you take your war gaming in the later/last decades of your life. |
Ottoathome | 29 May 2016 3:50 a.m. PST |
"Point??!!!" There is no point to any of this. Life is nothing but constant, endless, meaningless, pointless suffering. We live in a universe in which human happiness does not seem to be a constituent principle. If you are looking for validation from your hobby, it is that you have spent your time, effort and treasure in something that does NOT increase the suffering of others. We engage in the hobby for no other reason than to both divert ourselves from the pointless, miserable, bleakness of existence, and provide some value, happiness, and enjoyment for ourselves. They provide a venue where we can have a real sense of accomplishment and exist, for a time, in contentment and joy. All hobbies are "Walter-Mitty-like" existences. The "joke" in the "Walter Mitty" Story is supposed to be the dweeb, the jerk, the timid, bumbling milquetoast Mitty himself who is a gross farce who lives in his make believe world of "Pocketa-Pocketa-Pocketa" but the real joke is on the people who deride and bully Mitty, and those who laugh at him. Mitty derives his happiness solely from his own fancies and hurts no one, and does not cause his fellow human beings the least suffering (though he puts up with much of it himself from them. He meekly submits to the bullying of others because he realizes that there is little to be done about it, and tries to be a decent fellow no matter what is tossed at him, because he IS a decent fellow. He operates under the completely absurd fallacy of "Doing unto others what you would have others do unto you" and not the contrawise "Do unto others before they can do it to you." Mitty doesn't have a malicious bone in his whole body. When he finally falls into a REAL adventure he largely bumbles his way through it to success, but whether Mitty , the worm who has now turned, is really happier is a debatable point. His new found assertiveness to the people who once rode rough-shod over him, will, we know leave a bitter taste in his mouth and as the movie closes we hear in noises off stage the unending refrain of "pocketa-pocketa-pocketa" |
Mute Bystander | 29 May 2016 5:00 a.m. PST |
No, the suffering is from our fall and the results of that fall. That said, I will now begin ignoring your existential rant. There is a point to life but you will have to find it yourself. Or more correctly, you will have to be found by it. The OP was a start to a conversation about the war game/miniature hobby seen from the far end of the experience. If you do not wish to explore that please act like an adult and leave the room rather than bring your mental filth out for display. Working in the intelligence community I see enough of this ersatz reality 5 days a week. It is not that I don't see this current "reality" but that I see it as what it is and choose to see beyond it. I apologize to the rest of TMP for giving Otto a chance to splash his spleen on your hobby reading experience and invite you to comment on where you think your war gaming and miniature hobby is taking you. |
TheBeast | 29 May 2016 5:15 a.m. PST |
I'd probably suggest there should never be an end game in a hobby. I try to leave myself open to the unexpected. I'm not terribly interested in early warfare, but SAGA and the enthusiasm of friends has allowed me to try a version of it. Someday, I may have to run my lads up Little Round Top, or thrashing through the overgrowth at Chickamauga. Never had a lot of passion for ACW/WBTS, but I can dabble. As for space, have you looked at the Ad Astra stuff? I hate it (haven't tried Squadron Strike yet), but it does play in a version of 3D. Doug |
Cragglow | 29 May 2016 5:28 a.m. PST |
Have you checked up on microworld games? I believe there is no end game. This hobby is a part of us and we all have highs and lows, I constantly get excited by new things coming to the table. But it also helps to have an opponent to get excited with, if our hobby is a living thing, it needs a mate! I would say mostly where my hobby has taken me is from my early gaming days of cycling figures to refining my tastes in a few scales and treating it as any other hobby-ist (that isnt us megalomaniac miniatures guys) and buying magazines or watching games played and reading batreps. I have armies, and I play them, but I just enjoy the air around this stuff, man. :D |
Editor in Chief Bill | 29 May 2016 5:37 a.m. PST |
There's more to life than games. Just find the right balance, and you'll be good. |
Ralph Plowman | 29 May 2016 5:56 a.m. PST |
|
Kevin C | 29 May 2016 6:30 a.m. PST |
You are overthinking things. Just enjoy life. Kevin |
Ottoathome | 29 May 2016 6:35 a.m. PST |
If your interest in games is flagging, Mute Bystander, then you have no one to blame but yourself. At 67 with 45 years in the hobby I'm still energized eager, and going strong. The creative process and interest and excitement is work. It's not something that washes over you, it's something you conceive in your soul and which drives you on like a mission. Some of us have it, some of us don't. From scratch building forty wagons for each of my 18th century armies, (my present task) to min-dioramas, to designing new games, I'm never bored, inert or lassitudinous. To me there is no end game. I life my life as Ghandi suggested-. Live like there is no tomorrow, learn as if you were going to live forever. is 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration. I'll be painting and gaming long after I'm dead. My advice to you, my Weltschmertzed friend, is that of a former riding instructor I had. "Don't practice what you know, practice what you don't know." |
robert piepenbrink | 29 May 2016 7:31 a.m. PST |
Well, all of us eventually run out of something--money and space if not enthusiasm. And we will all eventually run out of time. I am myself trying to downsize--though I feel obliged to admit that since I made that resolution a bit over a year ago I've added a new scale and armies in three periods. (I'm still down a little on balance, mind.) New periods, scales or rules tend to just happen. No point in forcing the issue. And you wouldn't be the first wargamer to build an army and then sell it simply because you enjoy the building and can't keep everything. I'd say four things; 1) don't exactly duplicate. Tarzan in 15mm should not be a scaled-down Tarzan in 25mm, but have different opponents or be used for different games. 2) have the armies for the battles you love to fight. Don't count on an opponent providing anything. 3) Build armies generously. When you've got the essentials, have a few more than you think you'll need, then build the militia and the siege train. They make other games possible. And 4) always remember that time and chance happen to all of us. Keep a small portable force with rules which give you a battle on a 3x3 board, and armies you can identify even if your eyes aren't what they were. I don't know how long I'll last, but I mean to be found dead slumped over my table, not sitting in a corner wishing I could still climb the stairs to the game room. |
Weasel | 29 May 2016 7:47 a.m. PST |
Stop buying things and find new things to do with your existing toys :-) Try something you didn't do before. If you play grim military games, try something fun and silly. If you play single battles, try a campaign. Check out some rules you always meant to. Grab a game from the dawn of the hobby. |
Extra Crispy | 29 May 2016 8:11 a.m. PST |
Wax and wane is the way of it. I fiddle on guitar and mandolin. Some times for hours a day, some times I don't pick up either for a month. As I am not a professional musician, I play when it pleases me, stay silent when it don't. Same applies to all my toys. |
redbanner4145 | 29 May 2016 9:07 a.m. PST |
Extra Crispy, I think you fiddle on a violin. Guitars and mandolins you strum or pluck. |
Twoball Cane | 29 May 2016 9:44 a.m. PST |
I've been in the hobby for 20 years, although I took a break…became a freemason and now have two hobbies I cherish….I take a break from one and switch all the time which reinvigorates me. |
Editor in Chief Bill | 29 May 2016 10:56 a.m. PST |
I don't generally like mixing hobbies and discipline, but I find that if I make it a rule to do something hobby-related every day, no matter how small, it keeps my hobby spark alive. |
Flashman14 | 29 May 2016 12:38 p.m. PST |
The point of it is pleasure, pure and simple pleasure. |
Lion in the Stars | 30 May 2016 10:21 p.m. PST |
The point is to have FUN. Sometimes I think we ALL forget that, usually when I look at my lead mountain/painting queue. I have generally found myself wandering more towards 28mm skirmish, though I have a disturbing number of 15mm minis in various genre (due to terrain recycling between them). One thing that may re-inspire you is to look at your various armies and look for unusual matchups, minor skirmishes and the like. Another might be to look at Space: 1889 or Hive, Queen and Country and imagine the massive changes in tactics that can happen due to the technology. How different would the battles on the Northwest Frontier be if the British forces had flying gunboats? The battles and patrols in the Sudan? |
steam flunky | 31 May 2016 5:17 a.m. PST |
Interesting topic. Turning 50 this year and having been in the hobby for 35+ years, i have also been thinking deeply about it. Wargaming/collecting figures is something i enjoy doing just as much now as at the start. When i visit a wargames show i am as close to being a kid before xmas as i ever will be. Over the last few years i have realised 3 things. 1)I dont like having too many armies collecting dust and not getting "played with". 2)I dont like having lots of half finished projects that never will be completed. 3)The best collections/games i have seen are the ones where people have stuck at it over a long period (or always gone back to it) and have slowly built up something special. Basically i have come to the conclusion that i should really try to not get distracted as easy and to stick to a few periods/collections that mean the most to me and continue to improve them and also sell the stuff i dont use and the unpainted miniatures i never will paint. Improving them does not necessarily mean large armies where half of the units never get on the table but maybe improving/adding to the terrain so the games look better,maybe repainting some of the less well painted figures, maybe painting more civilians and supply wagons that always look good on the table but are often less of a priority. At the moment it is going well. I have been concentrating on my 15/18mm fantasy collection for a few years now (with short breaks) and have sold a few armies so i am happy withthe way it is going. Cheers Robert |
TheBeast | 04 Jun 2016 8:40 a.m. PST |
Okay, I let this go a long time, but I will bring up the 'what about the lady(whatever) of the house…)' We've all know fellow gamers who've passed, and left large collections. I've known some who've gotten firm commitments from friends to help disperse same, but it's still a lot of work and time. I've been trying of late, unsuccessfully, so far, to try and clean my act up just because I'm reaching an age where the horizon is looking pretty damn close, and it'd be nice if I thought of someone else about this. Doug |
steam flunky | 05 Jun 2016 11:08 p.m. PST |
We've all know fellow gamers who've passed, and left large collections. I've known some who've gotten firm commitments from friends to help disperse same, but it's still a lot of work and time. I've been trying of late, unsuccessfully, so far, to try and clean my act up just because I'm reaching an age where the horizon is looking pretty damn close, and it'd be nice if I thought of someone else about this. @ TheBeast This is also something that has cropped up in my "turning 50 + thinking deeply" moments (see post before yours). Although i am fit and healthy you never know when the bus is coming (Douglas Adams was 49 and in a fitness studio he regularly visited). My parents are over 80 and when i see their loft i cringe at the thought of sorting it out and my father is still collecting more stuff instead of clearing out the old. I think the trick with wargames collection is simply downsizing and concentrating on the favourite collections. Also i was thinking of photographing the figures and listing roughly what they are so my wife or kids know what they are and what to do with the various armies (eg. ebay or give to friend/club). I dont consider this depressing or pessimistic, simply realistic. |
Extra Crispy | 06 Jun 2016 7:38 a.m. PST |
One reason I have my collection well sorted and labeled is so that if I get hit by a bus my wife can clear it out easily. In fact I have a friend and we have a pact – I'll unload your stuff you unload mine. Rather than leave it to the widow I'd go collect the lot, and sell or give away the collection. So all my stuff occupies one 10x12 storage room. I hope to make it to 90 like my grandfather, but if I hit 80 you'll see a lot of those collections put on the block! |
steam flunky | 06 Jun 2016 10:49 p.m. PST |
One reason I have my collection well sorted and labeled is so that if I get hit by a bus my wife can clear it out easily. In fact I have a friend and we have a pact – I'll unload your stuff you unload mine. Rather than leave it to the widow I'd go collect the lot, and sell or give away the collection. That reminds of an episode of "Coupling" where Jeff and Steve have keys to each others houses as they are "porn buddies". Jeff: If one of us dies the other will quickly go in and get all the porn mags and vids cleared out before the widow finds them. Susan: Oh, clever. Quickly destroy them to save embaressment? Jeff: Who said anything about destroying them? Your best friend's dead, but there's a bright side to it!". |
B6GOBOS | 08 Jun 2016 8:01 a.m. PST |
Yes. I think there is a point of diminished returns. Too many unfinished projects. Too many unpainted figures you know you will never do or have lost all interest in. Also looking ahead to possibly relocating I want to down size what I have in possessions in life. I look around and say where did all this carp come from. Next year I turn 60. Time to put asides painting and collecting and play much more. Right now its the opposite. Right now I have a couple sets rules I like. Interesting they are mostly unpublished (charge of the light brigade by David Raybin, and loose files and american scramble). I have a great Crimean army (British, French and Russian), nice American Revolution army and half way done on a small but interesting war of 1812 army. Still have enough airplanes to play wings of war/glory. Got some Houston's ships for span am naval battles (but would gladlytrade/sell them). So now it is time to enjoy them and play more often. Leaving the lonely painted thing table for the gathering of good friends and happily pushing toy soldiers around thetable. |
wizbangs | 08 Jun 2016 9:30 a.m. PST |
A friend & I are also going through this stage. At some point you need to discard all of the distractions & impulse buys that you never get around to and focus on the few passions that please you most. It's all about closure: you want to have a few years of gaming with "completed" armies ("complete is subject to your own definition, but you should define it & shoot for that goal). I have chosen to hold on to my Warhammer Fantasy. I own every army & have been collecting since 3rd edition even though we "froze" our armies with 7th edition rather than continuing to chase the GW car up the street. However, I never seriously took to painting several of the armies & when I thought about it, didn't have the interest to finish them. So, I dumped them. The only other outlet is my Flames of War collection. We started early war & will roll forward until I die or we get to the end (whichever comes first). Although tanks will be purchased, I have no intention of buying mid-war infantry when my early war infantry will serve the same purpose. That's it. Everything else is gone. A friend kept his ACW stuff (& dumped his Warhammer) so it technically gives us the opportunity to cover 3 genres between our collections. End of Life is all about closure. When you go you want to know that it was a life well-lived. You don't want to leave things undone and details hanging (i've sorted & labeled everything for the eventual estate give-away as well). You owe it to yourself to ensure the details are covered and to have completed some things before your time comes. This philosophy applies to your hobby just as much as personal & professional life. Trust me, completing this army or that collection will be just as important to you as a career goal or financial goal. It's what you spent your life doing. |
Capt Flash | 09 Jun 2016 9:49 a.m. PST |
Lots of pearls here. Wizbang and Otto's first post summed it up well for me. |
Markconz | 10 Jun 2016 12:01 a.m. PST |
Good questions MB. Here's my 2c. Pick a few projects and do them well. Store it so it can be sold easily and money donated to relatives or charity. I have no kids so it will be the widow or charity for me. And once you have considered these matters for a time, then savour the moments gaming, painting, or whatever without worrying about what else you could be doing instead. It really isn't what you do but the attitude you take to it that is far more important (overwhelming choice often just makes people more miserable). Be clear about your values and act on them until you drop dead, preferably with dice in hand! Or you could stick everything in storage, freeze your head, and wake up in 500 years facing the same problems of what to wargame. :) I'm in my early 40's but already planning these things as one never knows when the game is up. I'm a shrink working with various tragedies all the time, which is a good reminder to appreciate each moment, even if it's painting horses. …well ok maybe not painting horses but most things! ;) |
Legion 4 | 13 Jun 2016 6:08 a.m. PST |
I will be 60 in Dec. I plan on working on all the models I have until the day I die … and I plan on living to 100 ! Unless aliens land and make me immortal … And then I'll just continue to paint my minis … forever … |