"How does one answer the impossible question." Topic

"I follow a lot of wargaming blogs and one of my favourites is the Palouse Wargaming Journal written by Jonathan Frietag. I think its fair to say Jonathan is a pretty intelligent American chap who can analyse information regarding wargaming and make sense of the data. His latest post concerns information gleaned from the Great Wargaming Survey.

By counts, less than 4% of survey respondents maintain no surplus of unpainted figures. Almost 41% of respondents have between 100 and 500 unpainted figures. About 82% hold fewer than 1,000 unpainted figures in their storeroom. Still, the remaining 18% of wargamers hold more than 1,000 unpainted figures. Why maintain a stockpile of so many unpainted figures? When is enough "enough" to have on hand? …"

More in The Independent Wargames Group Blog

link

Armand

There are two answers, one whimsical, one actual.

Anyone who has been in the hobby any length of time will have heard the time honored chestnut. "As long as you have unpainted lead, you can never die."

In actual practice, no gamer is ever working on just one project. We will inevitably be seduced into advancing several projects. It is not unusual to have several underway, only to get drawn into yet another. The net result is that all languish to some or another degree while one benefits from our efforts.

How high's the lead pile, momma?
Three feet high and rising.

You can have enough figures, but never too many.

And many of use who use plastic figures don't paint them ever.

Bunkermeister

Sometimes you buy an entire project at one time from one or two manufacturers because in 1-2 years they might not be around anymore. And you work with two or three projects at one time and go back to the pile as things get done.

I don't really ponder on the "enough is enough" question. Yes I have a bunch of unpainted stuff but it is concentrated across the relatively few scales and periods that I have chosen to focus on and given the number of times a range and/or manufacturer has retired or otherwise gone toes up, I'm Ok with a hoard or two.

Sometimes it's shiny and cheep and we have the best intentions ! :) Then again, there's a road paved with those <sigh>

You asked the question:

"When is enough "enough" to have on hand? …"

The answer is "yes".

A few years back, I sat down to do an inventory count of my unpainted figures, (all sizes and scales, to include vehicles).
I counted 1/285, 10mm, 15mm, 18mm, 20mm, 25mm, 28-32mm, and larger figures.
I finally stopped and gave up around 5K.
This was before I got my Reaper Bones V KS, and now Bones VI is starting to ship, so my approximation count is that I possess a little over 6K unpainted figures.
I realize that I never will paint them "all", and if I did, I wouldn't have room for displaying them, (unless I did an entire wall as one big display case), but for me I enjoy having them, looking at them, and then finding ones I want to paint and putting color on them.
FWIW, I still have approx. 300 15mm ACW Stone Mountain Figures that I spray primed back in 1993 that I have never gotten around to painting….

To be honest figure mountains no longer exist for me. £d printing means print only what you are about to paint. You may have massive numbers of STL files "just in case" but they take minimal space, a 2 Terra Byte drive is really small. An the printer "Oh that's for the DIY dear, toys are just a sideline".

Thanks

Armand

How does one answer the impossible question

By buying more figures, terrain and rules?

I have 5K plus unpainted figures but not many are 20mm plus. Most are 3-10mm so take up relatively little storage. It is when they get painted they start to need a lot more room.

If I'm in a painting phase (which I'm not at the moment) I can shift a fair number each month but I'm getting close to storage limits even with small scale figures.

I had <200 unpainted fantasy figures.

Then I recently decided to start painting my Army Men figures again, only this time, I am trying a new technique: hoping the paint will adhere to them beyond the decade mark.

That increased my unpainted figures count to around 400-500.

The good news is that my new Army Men figure painting techniques add very little time to the overall time required: I am spray Priming/Base Coating them in a similar color to the plastic, hoping this will delay the paint from peeling off; once that is completed and dry, I will again, only paint the colored bits that vary from the base coat color, then apply The Dip Technique, as before. It will add roughly 1 minute/figure, to what averaged two minutes, before I spray primed them, so three minutes per figure, on average, in assembly line painting techniques.

Krylon claims their latest Fusion formulation adheres/resists peeling 10x stronger than the original formula. I hope they are right… I am also hoping that the base paint will improve the overall look, as the craft paints did not have as much opacity over the bare plastic as I desired. Cheers!

"When is enough "enough" to have on hand?"

Probably because I'm tired…but my answer is, "Why do you care?" and "It's none of your business how many figures I have." After all, how does it effect you?

I've got 2000-odd unpainted minis, which have accumulated largely for two reasons: waxing and waning enthusiasms making me jump between projects rather than finishing ones, and concerns about minis ranges becoming unavailable by the time I've got time to paint them. (Wise from experience, I nowadays try to buy everything I'll ever need for one project in one go.)

They're almost all 15mm or smaller, so the storage space they take up is negligible. I'd like to reduce the pile, but it's not a practical problem.

Im 3d printing all my hobby stuff now and many other gamers will soon be doing it as well unless the manf drop their prices which they wont.

the only problem i have are wheels