"Classic Wargaming Disasters - The List" Topic

Let's see if we can come up with the definitive list.

I'll start:

1. Supergluing body parts.
2. Sealing your painted figures with paint/primer.
3. Stepping on pikemen armed with sharp wire weapons
…

4. Drinking your paintbrush water by accident.

Dropping a tray of figures
Greasy fingers

My best paint job, got primer instead of sealer…ouch.
I've also drank my paintbrush water.

The vengeful spouse/girlfriend
lost/stolen at the convention/show
left on the top of the car

Slicing your fingers with a modelling knife.

But hey, at least we have superglue for gluing body parts back together!
: 3

Discovering your varnish coat dissolves paint.

Slamming on the brakes in your car, causing your figures, stored in a xerox paper box top to go flying forward. It was just a short trip down the road. What could possibly go wrong with the quick transport idea?

Varnishing before the metallic paints were completely dry, and thus making the whole model "sparkly"… [remedy is to use a varnish with a different solvent to the paint e.g. acrylic varnish for enamel paints, and vice versa]

Spilling molten metal on hand and arm while casting Prince August Napoleonics. 38 years and my "wargaming" scars have not faded.

Leaving 3D printed ships out in the sun while primer dried.

Son causes three shelves of fully rigged 1/600 transition era ironclads to. Collapse.

Accidentally ruined $15 USD paintbrush by getting it into freshly dollopped superglue.

The paint changes colors over the years so all your backpacks and muskets become bright orange.

The boxes escape your two-wheel cart, and your castings are scattered down a flight of stairs.

The plastic pikes go S-shaped with time.

But don't forget the scenarios!

The game where even if the enemy went home, you can't reach your objective within the turn limit.

The scenario writer or a CinC missed a possibility, so you traveled four hours and the game is over on Turn One.

The game where cumulative penalties make actually getting a hit a mathematical impossibility.

The activation system means you will never actually move troops. Drive two hours. Set up the board. Put the troops away, and drive two hours home.

Bill, why did you leave your vengeful spouse/girlfriend on top of the car at the convention?

OK I suppose the answer is self evident

How about

Spraying face with primer rather than the figures.

Cat decides air support is instead a cat toy

Oh, the box was supposed to be the other way up🙄

Drive two hours. Set up the board. Put the troops away, and drive two hours home.

Slight variation here….

Drive two hours. Watch game runners spend 2.5 (honest) hours cramming a table so full of Napoleonics there is no room for movement while listening to them reminisce about past conventions. Spend next half hour resolving fire (game starts with many units in musket range) for 3-4 of the 30 or so units on the opposite side. Put the troops away, and drive two hours home.

Next day, drive two hours to play in 2nd naval battle of Guadalcanal using General Quarters. I play Atago. Opening turn, plot move, move, no targets in range, hit by 16" salvo. BOOM. Instant spectator.

Reflexively catching a falling exacto knife with the palm of my hand

The spray paint instead of primer thing – you do it once (to a newly done up Confederate regiment, in my case) you never do it again

When you spray the clear matte finish on a humid day, and it turns fuzzy.

Forgetting to shut the hobby room door when there is an angry cat on the prowl.

Not me, but I will relate this…. gaming bud of mine deployed for Reforger 82. While he was gone his wife stacked 20+ Avalon Hill, SPI, Yaquinto, GDW etc games in the furnace cabinet to get them out of the way.

When he returned stateside he found them there, completely destroyed by mold – every counter, map and box was covered in pigment devouring mold. Some of those games are priceless now.

Oh, it was supposed to fit that way, after glue dries overnight.

I spread out several thousand 15mm WW2 minis (FoW) on a large glass topped table in the garage intending to sort them out later. That night it got *really* cold and the table… exploded. Almost everything was damaged and, worse, the minis were mixed completely with tiny shards of glass. A dozen years out and most of them are still in a bin.

Forgot to put adequate drain holes in a resin 3D print – model leaks resin in your soldier box or (worse) bursts a few weeks later

Ah, mold. I had a whole bin full of AWI compatible MDF buildings. After ONE WEEK they were covered in mold. Just like an old Outer Limits episode.

As for bodily harm, I had a chisel point mounted on an X-acto handle that started to roll off the table. I grabbed it …..

Your Exacto blade slips and carves a precise split in the edge of your thumbnail AND thumb. That one was last week and I've had most of the others in the 30+ years of being a miniature gamer.

Did not happen to me but heard that in a divorce she asked for half the figures. Not half the units ,but half the figures in EACH unit.

Carving a resin model with a scalpel, cut finger to the bone, go to sleep with it wrapped in a first field dressing! Drop a long handled heavy scalpel onto foot so it sticks out. Both red wine related!

Friend places two tool boxes of 28mm Polish figures on unsupported tile on the end of table, tips off!

Old kitchen cabinet in garage expands, 5 shelves of 28mm TYW Swedes plummet!

Mice attack 20 plastic ACW many heads and bayonets lost!

Tally Ho!

stuck your exato in your leg

Sticking flock to painted figures (eg via varnish) instead of base.
Detailed painting that takes ages and looks great at 6 inches but just dark blobs at 2 feet.
Horses end up unnatural colours like pink/purple/yellows.
Basing figures with so much overhang they cannot fit together as a unit.
Adding obviously anachronistic figures to multi-figure bases in a misguided attempt to create variation.
Painting obviously anachronistic figures suggested by supplier as appropriate.
Painting imaginary figures invented by early WRG Armies and Enemies guides that have no relation to historical sources.
Painting with acrylics under artificial light that produces figures with Las Vegas style neon colour scheme under natural light.

I have a scar between my right thumb and forefinger, from a model building accident from college days. I was trying to carve a mortar pit into a Vietnam assault craft.
Also painted Heritage Medieval Gothics in the early 70s with oil paints, and then discovered that dull coat and oils don't mix!
Dipping paint brush into drinking water, beer, coffee etc.

Painting imaginary figures invented by early WRG Armies and Enemies guides that have no relation to historical sources

Like the Carthaginian Zulu hoplites?

Leaving units with paper flags out on table top cats can access. Results in "battle damaged" flags.

Attempting to clear a clog in a can of light-blue spray paint and getting a face full of it (was lucky I didn't lose my vision…)

Cleaned my brush in my coffee….

How about 2 and 3 years olds playing with your armies, guaranteed to cause some major destruction. My sister in law took my armies out of my closet in my room and gave them to said children "because they are just toy soldiers". The fact they did not belong to her or the kids was not a problem in her head. Half of the armies exposed to this treatment did not survive, I have to love the fact she could not fathom why I was a little miffed.

Overstacking the cart instead if making two trips. Resulting in picking up B-29, F-86, and MiG-15s in the middle of a busy intersection after the inevitable falling boxes.

Asked if would like to join the Napoleonic game in progress at a convention. Assigned a unit out on the flank. Go to move figures. Told if you move "my cavalry will ride your unit down." Heads nod all around. Ask if I can form square. Same type answer "if you try my cavalry will react and ride you down!" Heads nod all around. Left to get a beer did not return. (so maybe something positive after all!)

Leaving a collection of buildings that were assembled with hot glue in the car since I was running an evening game at Historicon. When I came back to get said terrain, all I had was disassembled walls. My sister-in-law spent the next hour and half assembling all the buildings again. Hot glue melts in hot cars!

Sliced fingers many times. Now I pre-bandage two fingers on my left hand before I pick up the Exacto. Coca-cola does not clean a brush very well.

They worst story I know of. My friend transported his figures in gun cases. The army that he was super-proud of was transported in two rifle cases. During the DC sniper times, he was caught in one of the checkpoints. The state troopers saw rifle cases and detained him. Even though he told them what was inside and asked them to be careful, they opened the cases and spilled almost 2/3s of his army on the side of the road. He wanted to stay to recover his miniatures but it was the middle of the roadblock and he had to leave. We went back the next day and managed to salvage maybe 10% of the army.

No matter how much paper you put down some glue always manages to get on the kitchen table.