"I would rather play than paint" Topic

Ok…..I do enjoy painting figures , but as we all know it is time consuming but nevertheless rewarding.
I wanted to play Napoleonics for some time now and have plenty of boxes of Victrix stuff to get me started….but will take an age to paint.
One idea I had to get to playing quicker was to buy boxes of zvezda, italera soft plastic fig…..stick them on bases…no paint or grass etc and just use them….

I then came across the idea on this website of printable armies….even better

I am assuming that other people have used this method and was wondering how they got on with certain rule Sets?

I have various game mats and scenery etc, so I reckon it would be a quick fix to get playing…..in between the painting of course

Hopefully the printable scan be scaled to fit certain frontages and then adhere them to standard size bases.

Must admit to quite a bit of enthusiasm going on here.

I assume that you've discovered juniorgeneral.org
- loads of stuff to print and play for every period for free – click on the "paper soldiers" tab.

As to rules, it shouldn't make any difference whether you are using paper, plastic or metal – it is the game that counts.

I have armies for the ECW and ACW from Billy Bones Workshop. These are printable paper armies and I am quite fond of them now.

I wrote my own rules for the ACW period, primarily designed for simple, easy to play games at conventions and with about 1 division per side.

The ACW stuff prints well. I used a heavy ivory paper in my home printer. Cut out the sets on a bamboo cutting board with a steel ruler and a sharp X-Acto blade. MUCH easier to do than using scissors, and easier on your hands. Did stacks of these while watching TV, listening to music, etc.

The thing about Billy Bones Workshop sets is that he includes matching paper terrain with the soldiers. Houses, barns, trees, roads, different types f fences, etc.

Anyway, after cutting them all out, I folded them all and set the edges using the handle of the X-Acto knife. Then I used a glue stick to glues the sides together. Easy and straightforward.

The only thing I added was .8mm thin 60X40mm wood bases from Litko, to make them a more permanent type of unit. They stand up better and I like the final result.

Terrain stuff I either used as is or made some bases for them from matboard.

Link here.

link

I tried making a medieval army with Jr General paper minis but decided I didn't like the look. Eventually, I opted for 3mm figures, which I could paint up very quickly. PicoArmor does Napoleonics
link

Another option is the Perry Travel Battle
link

I have made paper Roman, Norman and Viking armies in my time as well as lots of role-playing figure (I had a massive Judge Dredd collection of home-made card minis). I drew the figures on card myself, coloured them in with pencils and cut around them a few millimetres from the actual image. Glued to bases and voila – instant armies.

Paper just isn't heavy enough for me. I would rather play with heavy painted bases with unit icons than paper. I.e. Counters.

TMP member michaelcollinshimself sells 6mm Napoleonic printable armies but with a slight difference, they fold into blocks.

You'll see what I mean from the link.

link

paperterrain is making Napoleonic and ACW paper armies in various scales
paperterrain.com

10mm don't take too long to paint, and they both look stunning and feel reasonably weighty when you move them.

I, too, would rather play than paint. That is why I play Commands & Colors Napoleonics. The game uses red (British) and blue (French) wooden blocks with stickers on them depicting soldiers in various uniforms depending on type of unit; light, line, grenadiers, etc.

I suspect that the real advantage of paper soldiers is the cost, not the time. True 6 or 10mm figures take longer to paint, but if one is after mass effect rather than exhibition standard, it is probably not more than 4 times longer. For the extra effort, one gets something which is robust, looks realistic, and will last for a lifetime, If the game play is more important than "playing with soldiers", than as others have suggested – go for simple icons/counters

1. player, will use anything from rocks to miniatures.

2. player painter, will use unpainted miniatures or painted miniatures.

3. painter player, always uses painted miniatures.

4. painter, always painting, rarely plays.

I consider myself a 3/4 now.

The big advantage of figure by figure painting, mounted on movement trays to form the unit, is that you can then adapt your figures to your increasing painting skill and patience, as time goes along.

You don't have to do more than paint the identifying features of army and group of figures per unit, and do so as simply as you feel you need to.

The more specific details can be added later, as you discover techniques and become practiced at using them.

Naturally one might want to bring them all "up to date" but it shouldn't cause a crisis when painting models, in quite the same way as smaller figures, and bigger numbers of figures per unit that are then permanently mounted.

I'm beginning to think about basing my remaining 15mm Napoleonic armies and getting around to painting them later. Naturally there will be patches between figures that I cannot reach. I shall try and be sensible about that. I believe that with mine, it is the cavalry horses that will suffer most. Their strapping between figures and shabraques shall disappear between figures, if I do this.

However I shall have produced much larger forces more swiftly as well as organised my forces better if disaster struck me and a mountain of unpainted soldiers and incomplete armies led to problems passing them on to others.

Check out the Battle for Britain and Battle soldiers for America series of books by Peter Dennis and Andy Callan, published by Helion & Company: full colour troops which you can copy, cut out, fold snd base to create armies for Roman Invasion AD43, WotR, ECW, AWI and ACW, and ships for Spanish Armada.

Agree – play versus paint all the time BUT use the play time as motivation to paint and then stick at it…

If you really go for it (and are happy to cut corners on painting eg using dips etc) you can crank out a large number of troops in a relatively short space of time…

Whilst painting do other things – listen to music, help kids with homework and dare I say it talk to SWMBO

good luck…

10mm don't take too long to paint, and they both look stunning and feel reasonably weighty when you move them.

This must be why I have thousands of unpainted 10mm sitting in boxes…