"Miniature Wargaming: 2D Paper Figures" Topic

Having someone else paint your figures for you would seem to be cutting out the "modeling" aspect, if you go by the criteria laid down in the poll's premise.
Clearly that's ridiculous.

I have large collections of Billy Bones Workshop ACW & ECW and love them very much. I recently started collecting the Helion publication of ACW, ECW, Roman/Britons, etc.

I love these minis as well, as they are VERY well illustrated and colored. Besides, they have some excellent rules attached in each set, which are very easy to quickly learn, thus making them (the rules) a great choice for convention or game day scenarios.

Seems to me a mini is a mini, 2-D or 3-D

I think that the paper minis are a great way to try out new rules – plus as TKindred said, many of them are done up to a very high standard

Only done it once when I designed a Death Race 2000 style game using 1:24 scale cars and printed figures 75mm tall for pedestrians. Plenty of modelling work in the cars along with search and scaling of the clip art figures.

It's not that one has to model all their own figures, it's that all the figures are modeled. Avalon Hill games are all miniature wargames under the loose definition. Unless it's a question of dimensions.

One way to think of it is to remove all the other compares. If miniature wargames was exclusively a 2D affair with zero miniature sculptures in existence, it would simply be called wargaming. Conversely, if only 3D existed and no 2D existed, then it is miniature wargaming, and also wargaming.

The best that can be said is that 3D is more accurately miniature wargaming than 2D is, which is just another step above tokens representing military figures/formations.

I certainly wouldn't bother attending a paper wargaming convention and I probably wouldn't participate at all if only 2D modeling existed. The 3D sculpture is both significant and essential to my hobby.

And what about PC gaming? All the elements are there for miniature wargaming – tactical decisions are made with impressions or a model of terrain and units types with a competitive objectives. The representations are smaller than you, so then: a miniature.

More importantly, it isn't really a question of is or isn't, but one of simple preference. I regret wasting time on these pointless definitional questions.

The only difference between 2d paper miniatures and metal flats is the material used. People use buildings made of paper, wood, plastic, resin, and metal. Figures vehicles and ships are also available in plastic and resin along with paper and metal.

Early miniature wargaming was often done with flats (two dimensional metal figures) instead of rounds (as three dimensional metal figures were called back then). Tony Bath, who ran the famous Hyborean Campaign and was a founder of The Society of Ancients, gamed with metal flats. Two dimensional paper soldiers have existed for decades. People game with two dimensional paper ships. The two dimensional paper soldiers, etc are not full size, therefore they are miniatures of the real thing.

People use the plastic figures from board games for miniature wargaming without painting them. Where is the modeling in that? There is nothing in the definition of miniature wargaming that says anything about modeling being required. If you buy an army at an estate sale or a used army from a friend or on ebay and do nothing with it other than gaming are you then not miniature wargaming?

I have seen wargaming tables with terrain represented by paper or cloth roads, waterways, and fields. Hills, woods, and other terrain features have been represented by cut pieces of cloth. Just look at what is often used in tournaments. Those are not models of the actual terrain, but it is still miniature wargaming.

Definition of miniature from dictionary.com
a representation or image of something on a small or reduced scale.
a greatly reduced or abridged form or copy.
a very small painting, especially a portrait, on ivory, vellum, or the like.

and this from the Oxford dictionary
Represent on a smaller scale.
‘she saw her own reflection miniatured'

and here is the definition of model from the Oxford Dictionary
A three-dimensional representation of a person or thing or of a proposed structure, typically on a smaller scale than the original.

We are not "model wargaming". We are miniature wargaming.

As a final note, all my miniature soldiers, vehicles, etc. are three dimensional items. That is just what I prefer to use.

I'm puzzled by this. What's the point? If the subtext is to somehow denigrate those who use 2D miniatures, then that is just bizarre. Pretty much anything that gets more people wargaming is just fine with me.

I've used the downloads from the junior general site to create units for WSS (similar to the blocks of paper soldiers illustrated in John Tunstill's "Discovering Wargames"); altering colors and adding a few alternate details (like headwear) seems to represent "modeling" (although not quite the same as working with paint, brushes, epoxy, or a soldering iron)-- and all the bits of terrain are no different from that used with metal figs.

I'd say it was the outer edge of miniature warfare, but still within the borders. For comparison, I'd rate a game played with the black on colored paper overhead views which came in the old Napoleon's Battle box as (just) on the other side of the line--a historical wargame, but not a historical miniatures game, even though the rules were also used for historical miniatures.

(And does anyone remember the company which did the same thing with tricorn figures?)

Oh. And I actually use Junior General trucks and prime movers in my cheap 1/72 miniatures game. Enough trucks and half-tracks to move everyone would cost more than the rest of the project put together.