"Boredom in a Great Hobby" Topic

Why does such a great game involve SOOOO MUCH BOREING STUFF!
Today has been one of those days, basing troops, setting out terrain for the next big game and slapping some paint on some figures and basing them. None of these to me are anything like interesting, they are like bike maintanace vital but tedious. I have tried to find ways round it but you need decent complex terrain to make a good game. Trees need weighted bases and troops need to be organised into the right groups to make play fast and enjoyable but alas, it comes at a high price. Now planning a scenario thats fun, but setting it out not so much.

Different strokes for different folks. I enjoy setting up a game, getting the look right and such. And I like basing troops, again getting the look right, placing evocative things on a base (helmet, discarded rifle, etc. is fun!

If it's boring for you, outsource.

If it's not worth outsourcing, you're not that bored.

(adapted From my father's, "IF you don't want to eat what's served, you're not hungry yet.")

Basing units and setting up terrain do not bother me. But sometimes having to paint unending figures gets boring for me. I would out source my painting if there were some good American sites but everything seems to be overseas.

Getting stuff painted is not cheap. If I had to pay for it something else would have to go, more than the "cost" of painting. Same with bike Maintenance. If I paid for it my wargames budget would have to fall. Boredom is a high cost but it is the cost effective solution I just wish it was not.

UshCha, I get what you are saying.

But …..etotheipi has a point.

Eto's right. You don't like certain aspects, but you'd rather do them than pay the price for someone else to.

I had a nice pompous speech composed about enjoying preparing the armies, and it would have been (mostly) true. But a week of so ago I brought home 15 boxes of a friend's troops in need of work. Right now of six boxes still needing work, four of them are horse and musket artillery. I look at all those spoked wheels and the changing poses which make it impossible to build painting momentum, and I look for something else which needs to be painted.

But they'll be painted, based, grassed and matted before the game which requires them. It's a great hobby, and this is part of it.

Odd, for me these things are quite relaxing. I have an, at times, high stress job. Painting, basing, flocking, etc. are how I decompress.

I always feel it a burden getting and painting figures for a game, but once into it I am motivated to get it done, and in an odd way, I quite enjoy it.

UshCha, I agree with you. In general, I dislike painting and basing figures, and it is cost prohibitive to farm too much out. I consider it a necessary evil.

Getting stuff painted is not cheap.

It's not that expensive, and you can choose parts of the hobby where fewer figures are needed. Ironclads? Gladiators? Skirmish games?

Or switch to a scale that is easier to paint.

Or buy pre-painted figures.

Editor in Chief Bill – That seems odd to me, I chose the game first not howe I deal with it.
I play for the learning, I am interested in how stuff fights and how to understand what I read.

On that bais the period and type is not a variable I would even consider changing.

Thre were some pre-painted commecial stuff at 25mm but it never took of like Pre-painted tanks, which did for a while. Even the pre-painted 1/144 stuff is now expensive, when we started 1/144 CanDo amnd the like ver really good and cheap and pre painted, alas those days are gone. I may be gone before they are replaced by afforable pre-coloured 3D prints.