Where I hide my Naughty Space Pixies …

‘Conan!  What is best in life?’

‘To crush your enemies; see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.’

‘Conan! That’s great but you need to get your chores done first…’

Ah yes, there are things we all enjoy, but unfortunately we have to get the boring stuff out of the way first.  For the last few weeks, I have been in the library of Frugal Towers; researching, writing and getting rather stressed as I put the finishing touches to an academic project I’ve been working on.  However, the work has now been sent off and I’m free to paint, game, generally geek out and then write about it in a mildly amusing, but ultimately badly planned way.

Old School Raider with an old school finger attached

 The main news of the past few weeks is that I have finally completed my Dark Eldar.  I bought my Dark Eldar (or as I like to call them ‘Naughty Space Pixies’) a couple of years ago and left the box gathering dust on a shelf.  When the new Naughty Space Pixies Codex was released last year, I got them out of the box, assembled them, painted a couple and then put them back on the shelf to gather dust.  Eventually I had to paint them all so went for a quick scheme of basecoat, wash and highlight, with minimal detail.  So now I have approximately 1000pts of NSPs on the shelf gathering dust. 

The (semi) interesting fact about these NSPs is my storage technique. I ordered some 25mm self adhesive magnetic discs from Hasslefree Miniatures, at £10 for 100 though smaller packs are available.  Like a lot of gamers out there I’ve experimented with a few different methods of storing my Pixies, Gnomes and Galactic Knights, but I think that these magnets are the way ahead.  The discs only take a second to apply, and once in place are pretty robust.

Once the figures are stickered, it’s simply a case of finding a suitable receptacle to keep them in.  I’ve gone for a metal tool box that I got from a carboot sale for a couple of pounds, but for another unit I’ve used a boxfile with self adhesive steel paper in it.

Even the smell of ginger hair cannot dislodge the magnets.

For me, one of the main benefits of magnetic bases is the ease that the figures can be put away, no messing about shoving the figures into foam holes, just stand them up in the box and they hold themselves in place, winner!

As I rarely travel too far for gaming I think these are a good (Frugal) option for storage.  Anyone who regularly flies or takes trains to tournaments may want to consider something more robust, but then if you’re the sort of gamer who flies to tournaments then you’re probably not the type to worry too much about Frugal Gaming.

So, I’m back, I’ve completed an army and I’ve adopted a new way of storing figures, what more could you possibly ask for?

If you're interested in magnets, you may like to check out my Blood Bowl article.

Making Rivets (and a Snotling Pumpwagon)

If you’re a regular reader (or even an irregular one) you’ll have seem some of my progress on building snotling pumpwagons for my Warhammer Orcs and Goblins army.  They are now complete, fully painted and have seen admirable service on the gaming table.

These models are remarkable simply to make, but just take time completing the detailing to make them look good.  I would have liked to have added more detail to mine, but I was keen to get them onto the table to start smashing the enemy!

I made two pumpwagons, one armoured and one flying, but I’ll focus on the armoured one to show off my method of making rivets…

Equipment
You will need…

• Pin vice, with 1mm drill bit
• Sharp knife
• Selection of files
• Razor saw (or junior hacksaw)
• Side cutters

Materials

• Plasticard
• Model train kit
• 1mm round styrene rod (all from your local model shop)
• 12mm Plastic Pipe – (from local DIY shop) you only need a very small amount so you could always just roll up some plasticard to make a small tube.
• Spare bits and bobs and the odd snotling
• Superglue
• Polystyrene cement (plastic glue)

As with any project like this, be careful when using tools and glues; running around the house looking for a first aid kit can seriously eat into your hobby time.

Making the Basic Shape
To save time and to ensure that I had a suitable basic shape for the pumpwagon I used a plastic locomotive kit.  My regular gaming buddy Lawrence gave me the idea after he’d used the same kit to make some horrendous warmachines for his Skaven army.  I promptly stole his idea and bought a kit from my local hobby shop for a reasonable £6 (~$10). 

I used the chassis of the kit to make the base of my armoured pumpwagon, the boiler was used for my flying pumpwagon.

The chassis was built up into a box shape using plasticard.  This was then adorned with additional panels, and various bits and bobs from my bits box to give it a much more ramshackle appearance.  I added a small length of 12mm pipe to the top to make a turret and fixed a blunderbuss onto that to strike fear into the heart of the enemy.  It works, so make sure you add one yourself.

Making Rivets
Once the basic shape was complete I added the rivets, this is a great way to improve the look of any model with a metal element.  There are a few methods on the market, including etched brass strips and individual stick on rivets, but I prefer the method I developed to use on some tank traps and then on my goblin rock lobber.

The method is simple (the photos are from making the roller, but as you'll see later the methods are the same);

1.    Mark on your plasticard where you want the rivets to go, roughly 3mm apart is good.
2.    Drill into the plastic using a 1mm drill bit in a pin vice, making holes wherever you marked.  When these are done, give the surface of the plastic a quick sand down to remove and rough bits of plastic.  

3.    Take your styrene rod, put a little polystytrene cement on the end and insert it into one of the holes you drilled.  Using a pair of side cutters, cut the plastic rod off, leaving about 5-6mm showing above the surface (don’t worry, you’ll remove the rest later).  Carry on around the rest of the model until all the holes have plastic sticking out of them.

4.    Leave this to set thoroughly.  Go and have a cup of tea or some cake.  Or both.
5.    Using your side cutters and a file, go round the model and cut and file all the rivets down until they are only 0.5 to 1mm long.  Experiment with different lengths of rivet until you find one which you like

I used the same method to make the spiky roller as well, adding styrene rod to a length of 12mm plastic pipe, but leaving the rod a little bit longer than the rivets.  The ends of the rod were covered in plasticard and the roller was then glued to the front using strips of plasticard

The snotlings were then stuck on using polystyrene cement (for the plastic figure) and superglue (for the metal figure).  At this point your shiny new pumpwagon is complete and ready for painting!

Painting
I would suggest painting the figure before adding it to a base (guess which way round I did it), as this makes it much easier.  I primed the model, then gave it a basecoat of GW Boltgun Metal, I then washed it with brown and black washes and picked out the various details and crew.  I found that the model benefitted from more and more washes and detail being added, but I eventually ran out of time and had to get it ready to hit the table!

I stuck the model to 40mm square base (the correct base size is a chariot base), in a suitably dramatic pose, added some sand and gravel and then painted it before adding some static grass to finish it off.

This was a relatively simple model to build.  The main thing to remember is to get a solid basic shape to which more detail can be added.  I hope you have a go at building your own pumpwagons, and if you do, let me know how you get on.

Happy Gaming
 

Don't get more games, get more gamers!

As regular readers know, I like to game.  I like to paint, I like to model, I like to write my silly little blog, but in the past year I have made a conscious effort to play more games.  Inevitably, like many other gamers, I have now started to look around for other gaming experiences; new games systems, new armies, bigger and more spectacular battles.  Of course, as a frugal gamer I fear the required expense that comes with these options.

Recently though, I have come across another option, which improves my gaming for minimal outlay;  I’m not getting more games systems, I’m getting more gamers.

This has come about in two ways, firstly I’ve joined the excellent gaming club here in Plymouth ‘Cross Swords’ and secondly I’ve managed convinced a non gaming friend to take up the dice.

Heavily themed, skirmish games such as Necromunda can really appeal to new players.

The benefits of joining a club are well known, but can’t be overstated.  Plenty of new players to face, lots of other armies to battle against, trial games of new systems, and even the ability to share lifts to tournaments and other events.  Of course, going to a club does have it’s costs.  Cross swords costs me £2.50 per visit for entry, a couple of pounds in petrol and the cost of a couple of drinks.  I visit every couple of weeks so the cost averages out quite well, and the idea of laying out my army in front of a room full of other players helps me to focus on getting figures painted and building the best army I can.

The second option is perhaps one that gamers rarely try; getting non-gamers to have a go.  I’m excluding those of us with children; we seem to be pressing dice into little pudgy palms before our poor sprogs can even sit up on their own.  As gamers, we can be a bit shy about telling our workmates and acquaintances about our hobby, and those of us that do will probably only mention that we ‘play wargames’  and if pushed we’ll tell them what game system we play. This is generally met with a fixed grin and a patronising nod of the head.  It is only rarely that others will ask for further details.  I do make a point of subjecting one of my work mates to terrifyingly detailed battle reports on a regular basis in an attempt to annoy him, try it, it works.

Anyway, I had the rare pleasure of a friend popping round a few weeks ago, looking at my figures on a shelf and asking me if he could try a game.  I thought it was some elaborate sting operation, but I eventually set up a couple of small scale trial games of different systems (Warhammer and Necromunda).  He really enjoyed the games and we’ve arranged some more for the future.

Gaming at a club can be great fun... and may include chocolate.

So over the last couple of months, I’ve managed to massively expand my gaming, without a huge outlay of cash.  I’ve also made a few friends, and brought a new person into the hobby.  Playing any existing games you own with new people, whether seasoned pros or n00bs, can be great fun and put a spark back into your gaming.  Give it a try and let me know how you get on.

Happy Gaming.

Living in a fantasy world

As regular readers of this blog know, I enjoy the trappings of power that being a famous blogger brings such as the money, the international travel and the constant requests for public appearances (I’m afraid I couldn’t make it to the Oscars this year as the organisers had already met their ‘British People’ quota).

The only drawback to my fame is that I now hate to give the oxygen of publicity to any other bloggers out there as I fear they may steal my precious followers (I love you all, please don’t leave me...).

However, I often see a blog that I feel needs a little bit more internet attention than it is currently receiving, in which case I’m happy to direct some of my fanbase over to it.  I was planning to recommend DJKs Fantasy blog, after it was brought to my attention a couple of weeks ago.  However, as DJKs blog is so good and I’m so lazy, within a few weeks (the first post on the blog was in February) the blog already has loads of followers.  So my idea of bestowing fame on one of the little people has failed. 

So, there’s no need for me to talk about the excellent work that DJK is doing on his blog, but I’m going to do it anyway.  As I say there have only been a handful of posts but each one is chock full of goodness.  Each is a detailed account of scratchbuilding wooden buildings suitable for fantasy, medieval or even old west gaming and he’s been using my favourite of materials, the wooden coffee stirrer.  DKJ gets his for free and they need washing so I’m not sure what he’s up to.  I hope he works in Starbucks.

DJK seems to have the polar opposite approach to me for terrain building, I like to draw detailed plans and measure everything as accurately as I can (I’m an engineer, it’s not my fault) whereas DJK seems to have a more rustic style, as he says himself:

I don't set out with detailed plans of what I intend to build, quite often I have an idea for the type of building I want or a feature I want to include and then see what happens.

I like his approach and it gives the pieces real character.  I hope I don’t sound like I’m damning with faint praise here; these models are fantastic and I felt inspired to try some of my own.  As a Frugal Gamer these buildings really appealed to me, they’re really cheap to make and look great when finished.

There are a lot of gaming blogs, that try to be funny (hello!), that show fantastically painted miniatures, or that teach you how to build gaming boards bigger than a swimming pool, but DJKs blog really appeals to me, it’s the kind of feature you’d expect to find in an old copy of White Dwarf.  It’s not only useful and very well presented, it also doesn’t try to hard to show off or be too clever.    In an age when everyone has to have a great new novel idea it’s heartwarming to see someone doing something simple and doing it so well.  I look forward to seeing what DJK comes up with next.

So in other words, I can highly recommend this site to you all, get over there now and check it out.

Happy gaming!

Frugalnomics Lesson 2 - Shopping Around

If you play Warhammer (or even if you don’t) you’ll probably be aware that Orc and Goblin players are getting some treats from everyone’s favourite games company in the next couple of weeks.  Games Workshop have revealed a whole host of new models, alongside the obligatory magic cards and the new army book.  There’s been the usual criticism of price rises and sculpting quality (yawn), but I really like all the new bits and pieces.  I suppose that if all you have to complain about in your life is that some plastic models don’t look exactly like you’d hoped, then things can’t be that bad overall.  I’d certainly never overreact to something so unimportant in the grand scheme of things.  Personally,   I like the idea of the new book (hardback, full colour and much longer) and can’t wait to get my hands on it.

But where from?  There’s plenty of places offering these items for sale but which offers the best value?  As part of your ongoing education in ‘Frugalnomics’ let’s have a look...

The first step in shopping around is to be clear on what you want buy, otherwise you may fall into the trap of spending more to make up to a free postage limit, or just get carried away with the excitement of it all and spend more than you’d planned.  Decide what you want and then stick to it!  For this exercise, we'll look at a typical Frugal gamer, lets call him ‘Percy’, who is an Orc and Goblin player.  Percy wants to buy the new orc and goblin army book, the aracnarok spider and a set of magic cards.  After a bit of looking around on the internet he chooses the following online stores (Total Wargamer, Maelstrom Games and Wayland Games) and compares them to his local Games Workshop (Please replace pounds sterling with crazy foreign equivalent as applicable.):

		Arachnarok	Magic Cards	Book	P&P	Total	Saving
	GW	£ 36.00	£ 4.10	£ 22.50	£ 0.00	£ 62.60	£ 0.00
	Wayland	£ 28.80	£ 4.71	£ 18.00	£ 4.41	£ 55.92	£ 6.68
	Maelstrom	£ 32.40	£ 3.69	£ 20.25	£ 0.00	£ 56.34	£ 6.26
	Total WG	£ 30.60	£ 3.48	£ 18.00	£ 3.99	£ 56.07	£ 6.53

 
So, by looking at the table, Percy can see that Wayland Games is cheapest overall.  But he also notices that by buying the army book and aracnarok from Wayland Games and then buying the Magic Cards from his local GW next time he’s in town, he can increase his savings to over £7.  Good work Percy!

Next time you’re thinking about your next purchase, have a look around and compare prices, a little bit of time spent searching can save you pounds (or crazy overseas equivalent).

Class dismissed.

Please note that prices were correct at the time of writing this article, please check prices yourself before making any purchases!

Frugalnomics Lesson 1 - False Economy

It’s nice to have the position of power that I do.  But as Spiderman famously said ‘With great power, comes great responsibility’, so as part of my ongoing mission to educate the masses, I’m launching an intermittent series of articles on Frugal Gaming basics.  I’m calling it ‘Frugalnomics’

Basically it’s like Scientology, except that it’s free and there’s no big secret at the end.  By the way, if you’re wondering, the big secret at the end of Scientology is that Bruce Willis is a ghost.

The first lesson is ‘False Economy’.  False Economy is (according to Wikipedia)

...an action which saves money at the beginning but which, over a longer period of time, results in more money being wasted than being saved.

So how does false economy relate to gaming?  Well, perhaps you bought some cheap miniatures on a whim, only to realise the quality was rubbish and they never got used.  Not only did you spend money unnecessarily; you now have to spend the money all over again to buy better miniatures that will get used.  Or how about this; you buy a cheap set of tools, they’re difficult to use and break after a few months of use; you need to buy them again.  As the old saying goes ‘Buy cheap, buy twice’.

So how do you prevent falling into the false economy trap?  The main way I’ve found is to have a look at how much alternative products cost.  If you find a particular product from one retailer, have a look around and see what other companies are producing it. 

The tricky bit is trying to decide which offers the best value for money; so not necessarily the cheapest or the most expensive, but the one that offers the balance of quality and price.  A recent example from my own frugal existence is superglue.  I’ve been using pound shop superglue for years and it’s always produced terrible results, breaking easily and requiring me to buy more.  After the last bottle ran out I decided to go for a more expensive brand and dished out £3.20 for some thick, slower setting superglue.  Since then, it’s been a pleasure to use and has been much more effective.  I only have to glue once and it stays stuck.

 Have you had a false economy situation?  Let me know via email, or post it below. 

Class dismissed.

The Appy Gamer

Since starting this blog I’ve received a lot of emails, and I often busy myself in the evenings learning about products that promise to ‘Boost You’re Manhood’ or ‘Make sure she pleasure EVRY time!!!’.  Sometimes though, I like to relax and read an email relating to gaming.  One such message came to me last week from Thomas who has started a Frugal Gaming blog.  As well as adopting a ‘buy one, paint one’ approach (this is the ‘Wax on, wax off’ mantra of the Frugal Gamer) Thomas has also installed an app on his smartphone to track his spending.
 

Like many of you out there, I use an excel spreadsheet to keep track of my finances (with general entries such as ‘rent’, ‘cat food’ and ‘bike maintenance’) and have now extended this to include my monthly gaming purchasing (remember that I’m planning to only spend £20 a month on gaming) so the idea of an app on my phone intrigued me.  Thomas recommended Daily Expense Manager by Tech Ahead for the Android OS.  After a little bit of internetting I found a similar app for the iPhone (or iPad, if you’re a real hipster) and I’ve started using it myself.

These apps are free and will help you track what you’re spending (often helpful, frequently scary) which can only be a good thing.  I’m going to give it a try for the next couple of months and see how I get on.  Why not try it too and let me know the results?

You may notice that I’ve gone over my budget this month, but hey, rules were meant to be broken.

 

Happy Gaming.

Testing, testing...

I mentioned the Mantic Skeletons in my last post and I've managed to get some painted.  I tried a number of different colours to see what final effect would look best (plus which would be easy to do 100 times over, and would look impressive when viewed as an army).  The results are below:

Of course the reason that they look so badly painted is due to some problem with my camera (and not because I'm a crap painter, they're only test pieces or erm... any other reason I can think of).  I'm going to go for the orange scheme (3rd along, looking a bit 'peachy') and the yellow and blue next to it.  I'll probably have units of each, though it'll be a while before I get started on painting them properly as I've got a metric tonne of Dark Eldar to get painted first.

Painting a few test pieces is a good idea if you're painting a large number of figures, it can be a nightmare to get halfway through an army and realise that it looks muddled and uncoordinated when it's all together on the tabletop.  Having to repaint or rebase figures can take up valuable time and money, so a few test pieces is quite a frugal idea!

Anyway, before I get onto my Dark Eldar or Undead I've got to finish off the Goblins, write a 2400pt list to go against Shiny tomorrow night and look at a 1000pt list for a forthcoming tournament (my first ever) so it's going to be a busy year.  Hooray!

A New Year of Frugal Gaming

Hello all and welcome to a new year of Frugal Gaming.  For those of you new to this blog, the aim is to reduce your spending on gaming products while simultaneously playing more games and improving the quality of games played.  I (and my small but select team of Frugal contributors) aim to help you achieve this by giving you hints and tips on money saving projects, reviewing products to make sure you’re getting the best value for your gaming money and generally giving you something else to read on the internet to prevent you straying onto ebay when bored at work.

This site has been running for two years now and we’re still growing so have a look around using the search box  on the right hand side of the page, the tag cloud at the bottom of the page or the tabs at the top of the page. and remember you can always get in touch with me by sending me an email.

Last year was a pretty good year for me and this year I want to do more of the same, my ideas for the forthcoming twelve months are as follows:

More Painting: I’ve got a lot of unpainted figures at the moment. My Orc and Goblin army for Warhammer is nearing completion and I’ve just started painting all the Dark Eldar for 40k that I’ve had stuck in boxes for ages.  In addition, I’ve also got a lot of undead to paint up, but more about that next week.  I plan to not buy any more for these armies until the units I already have are fully painted.  No more unpainted models on the table!

More Organising:  At the moment my painting desk looks like a refugee camp with a large number of unconnected projects on the go, I’d like to focus more on each project and finish one before I begin another, perhaps only having two models or units in the go at once, rather than the ten or so that I have at the moment.  If anyone has any tips on setting up a painting rota, I’d love to hear it.

More Gaming: I’ve been playing a lot over the past year, but I’d like to get more gaming done!  I’m considering going along to some of the local gaming gaming clubs, (work and my hectic social life permitting) to get the best out of my newly painted figures.

More Learning: As I say I’ve been playing a lot, but I’d like to get better, I’m planning to get a  notebook to keep a brief run down of each of the games that I play so I can learn from my mistakes and understand how a battle can turn on a few key moves.

Less Spending: I’m not quite sure how much I spent on gaming last year, but this year I’m going to set a budget and stick to it. I think £20 a month would be a reasonable figure, and I can always bring in more from selling my old bits and pieces on ebay if I have a big purchase I’d like to make.  I’m not sure how it’ll go but it’s worth a try!

So those are my aims for the year.  What have you got planned?  Drop me a line and let me know, all the best for the new year.

Happy gaming

Dave

Wargaming on a Budget - Book Review and Competition

Where do you read this blog, are you currently sat at your kitchen table? Are you at work? How about on the beach, or in the bath?  Though I’d like to think that this blog is a useful resource, you can’t beat a good old fashioned book to sit down and read wherever you fancy.

 
This week, I’m reviewing ‘Wargaming on a Budget’ by Iain Dickie.  For those of you unaware, Iain used to edit Miniature Wargames magazine, so he knows what he’s talking about.  The book presents ideas for gaming ‘constrained by money or space’, so you can see why it piqued my interest.

The scope of this book is huge, everything from ideas for campaigns and satellite combat rules, to descriptions on making ships and even casting your own figures.  It really does have it all, but the wide breadth of areas does not allow a large amount of depth; the book could quite easily be twice as long and still contain plenty to keep the reader entertained on each page. 

This reflects the slightly more ‘grown up’ tone of the book, it gives plenty of ideas and instructions, but doesn’t go into them in the type of explicit detail that many gamers are now used to.  As somebody who’s read lots of gaming and modelling articles, I appreciated this approach.  The book is decidedly ‘old school’ wargaming, covering all gaming periods and scale, again this may scare a few of the GW Fanboys off, but it shouldn't, there's so much content in this book and the majority of the ideas can be read across to any system or scale you choose to play.

The book doesn’t mention the internet as prominently as may be expected, which is a little strange.  I firmly believe that the internet is the single biggest gift to the frugal gamer; it allows price comparisons, reselling, discussion of tactics, free magazines and downloads, and a wide range of other resources. Though of course, any talk of ‘modern technologies’ instantly dates a book, so perhaps this was a wise move on the part of the author.

One of the ideas raised in the book is that, as gamers, we also need to be frugal with space.  It’s not something really covered in this blog, but it’s an area that surely affects us all.  Only a lucky few have dedicated gaming rooms where we can store all our figures, terrain and boxes of unfinished projects.  The author looks at ideas for changing scale, storing figures and making gaming tables that can be easily collapsed and stored away, ideas definately worth considering.

For me, the greatest strength of this book, alongside the huge amount of ideas, is the format.  I know this sounds stupid, but having a proper sized paperback to read, rather than an oversized glossy paged book is so convenient.  It can be read in the bath, in bed, or on the bus, without having to jostle for elbow room or tilt pages to look at the text. 

So don’t expect hundreds of glossy pictures and detailed instruction, (though colour pages are included).  This book makes a refreshing change from the step by step 'How To' guides that gamers have been spoon fed over the last decade.  If you want something with lots of genuinely novel and useful ideas in a friendly format, this is well worth adding to your Christmas list.

I'm giving away my review copy of this book in a prize draw; to enter simply send me an email with the title 'Book Giveaway' and I'll choose a winner at random.  The draw will close on the Saturday 18th of December at 1200 GMT.

Wargaming on a Budget by Iain Dickie is available through Pen and Sword books.  Many thanks to Rachele for the review copy.

How to Make a Million on ebay

Step one: Send me £10 for my amazing ‘Secrets to Ebay Selling’ DVD. 

One of my Frugal Gaming aims is to ‘Make Money from Gaming’, and until the call comes from Fantasy Flight to become their head of games testing, it looks like I’ll have to be selling on ebay.

There are lots of auction and selling sites out there, but the big one is ebay.  I’ve only had experience of ebay, but if you can recommend other good sites for buying and selling, let me know.  Here’s my 12 top tips…

Be realistic. 

You are not going to make your fortune on ebay.  Sorry.  If you’re working, consider how much you would have to sell on ebay every day to match your wages.   Keep it as a hobby.  Ebay is an excellent resource for clearing out items you don’t want or raising money for something in particular.  I bought my copy of the new Warhammer rulebook using money from ebayed items and I have a smug sense of pride from knowing that I effectively got it free. 

Count the cost.

If you’re selling to clear out unused figures, games and sets of rules then any money you make is a bonus.  However, if you buy items specifically to sell, then you have to be very careful with your finances.  The money that comes in MUST cover the initial cost of the items, plus postage, plus ebay fees, plus paypal fees, plus any packaging.  If you’re only just scraping even, then you’re wasting your time. 

Good photographs.

A fantastic photograph can make all the difference.  Take the time to set up a couple of lights, and consider investing in a cheap camera tripod to stop wobbling.

Strip paint.

If you have a metal model that’s badly painted, it can be worth stripping the paint, as many buyers will want to paint it themselves.  It could easily add a pound or two to the final selling price…

Paint it.

Then again, many people like buying prepainted figures, a nice cleanly painted, based figure may also bring in a few extra pounds.  However the extra money brought in may not be worth the time you’ve had to put in.

Buy big.

If you want to buy something, try and buy in bulk.  Even if you want only a couple of units, it can be worth buying a whole army and then selling the rest.

Sell small.

When selling, the opposite is true; it’s best to sell items individually or in single units.  You’re likely to get a better overall price, though it does add to the time you spend list and packing items for sale.

Sell overseas.

Of all the items I’ve sold on ebay, perhaps 60% are to international buyers.  If you only offer to sell in the UK, you severely restrict your market and the final sale price could suffer. 

Accept cheques/postal orders.

There are a few people that don’t have paypal accounts or don’t have funds in their account.  Allowing alternative payment methods increases your number of potential customers.

Local delivery.

I have sold a couple of items total buyers, this has a number of advantages.  The first is that if you get paid in cash you won’t have to pay paypal fees, secondly (and perhaps more importantly) you end up meeting people in your area that play games!  I met my Necromunda opponent Matt by selling him some figures which he collected in person.

Sniping. 

Now this may upset a few readers, but sniping is one of the best things you can do on an ebay auction.  Sniping is watching an item and only putting in a bid at the last minute. People hate it, but it often works and since this is a Frugal Gaming blog, not a nicey-nicey blog, I’d be wrong to exclude it.  You’re not breaking any rules, and there’s always a chance your ‘sniping’ bid won’t be high enough anyway (someone else may have set a higher maximum bid).  I always do it and find it effective, give it a go.

Set a limit. 

Decide what you want to pay for an item and stick to it!  It’s easy to get caught up in a bidding war and end up paying over the odds for something.

So there you go, my top tips to buying and selling, if you have any more, let me know.  Happy gaming!

Three Points and One Rule

Purgatus of Yes The Truth Hurts (apparently it is supposed to be missing that crucial comma) has recently given forth some helpful advice on hobby project management for those of us who find ourselves committing to too much at once.

As a man with half-painted Dark Elves (Been Painting: Cauldron of Blood crew), half-painted Skorne (Been Painting: Cyclops and Titan) and, VERY SOON NOW, half-painted Tyranids* (About To Be Buying: Cheap Nids), and limited time to work on any of it, this sort of thing is highly beneficial.

The first stage of Purgatus' three point plan involves finding a little time every week to do something.  My times, at the moment, are Wednesday night (I'll be running a school club as of next week, and so have a couple of designated hours to work on models while refereeing for the kids - we'll see how well THAT turns out after this Wednesday) and a good chunk of Saturday (early afternoon's working quite well, that seems to be when the new living room gets the sun), and I try to have a couple of models on the go during those times so I can work on one while another's drying.  I painted the first two beasts for my Skorne army and the Cauldron crew over the course of last weekend, and while I now have red fatigue, they look pretty good (pictures when I can get to a decent camera).  This week I'll probably be building/priming Tyranids and painting another Cyclops.

Second stage: don't get judgy about unpainted models, as long as progress is being made.  A few years of living in the Real WorldTM  has more or less cured me of any painting snobbery, but there's still the ghost of a hang-up in there.  As long as a project is making progress, as long as slightly more stuff is painted this week than last, it's okay: hence devoting some time to the Dark Elves last week, since they'd been neglected since I left Plymouth.

Third and most crucial stage: don't neglect playing.  Playing games is important because it gives the painting a purpose (unless you buy to paint, in which case you probably don't have the obligation, the need to learn to love the grey), gives you some motivation, gets you all excited about your Dark Elves (which reminds me, I've a game report I still haven't written) again and willing to put a lick of paint on them.  There's a similar, inverse effect from knowing that you have a game coming up and you want to paint something for it; witness my actually bothering to base the rest of my Cryx army because I knew there was a tourney in the offing.

There you have it.  How to stop worrying and love the grey.  I think it's important to have a Frugal brake on the proceedings, and mine is the Rule of One: one army per game played, which is holding up fairly well (if you consider Hordes and Warmachine as one gaming system, I'm cheating a bit, but I think the dynamics are different enough to get away with it, and having a small Hordes army does have the effect of reminding me how the Hordes rules work, thus improving my game).  I've been in Purgatus' shoes, where I've had seven or so armies on the go but haven't actually been able to pay the rent, and I don't want to go back there again.


* - yes, I did say it was going to be Orks, didn't I?  My next post will be on the various reasons why I changed my mind, as well as the plan for keeping the project moderately Frugal.  There's no lying about it - it's definitely a breach of protocol, but it's for professional reasons (school club a-go-go!) and the original plan to manage expenditure should hold up for them better than it did for the Orks.

Building a Ruined Defensive Wall - Part 1

A couple a months ago I saw an incredible terrain piece by Doctor Merkury on his pulp gaming blog; Doctor Merkury’s Lab, a gaming blog I can highly recommend to anyone with an interest in well made terrain, excellent writing or giant robots, so that’s pretty much all of us then... 

The piece in question was a ruined wall section (imagine a heavily damaged and neglected section of the great wall of China) that was in three parts, I was instantly inspired to created my own piece as a gift for my son.  (Remember my previous thoughts on making Frugal presents?)
 
I’m quite happy with how the final piece turned out so I thought I’d show you all my method for construction, there’s a lot of information, hopefully useful, so I’ll split this post into two parts and put the second up in a week or so.  Anyway, let’s begin...

Materials
The materials I used to make the wall are as follows:

• 5mm Plywood (you can use any thin wood, but I opted for thicker plywood as I wanted it to be hardwearing, see below)
• Crystacast casting powder (any casting plaster or Plaster of Paris will do, but Crystacast is very hardwearing)
• Polystyrene Foam (any old insulating foam or packaging will do)
• Sand and Gravel of various sizes
• Lots of paints (cheap acrylics or emulsions are fine)
• Matt/satin spray varnish
• Flock/Static grass
• PVA or Wood Glue
• Strong Epoxy glue (you can get good quality two-part epoxies cheaply from £1 shops)

Variations
I made my wall using plaster blocks cast from a mould, but you can also get excellent results cutting the walls from dense foam, then covering them with a fine sand and glue mix.

Tools

• Scroll Saw
• Sandpaper
• Hirst Arts Fieldstone block mould - see my review of Hirts Arts moulds here
• Hot wire cutter for polystyrene
• Sharp knife
• Strong pliers for breaking blocks
• Fine saw for cutting balsa wood
• Paintbrushes

Don’t worry if you don’t have a scroll saw or hot wire cutter, hand tools such as saws and sharp knives will also provide good results.

As always, be careful using any tools, paints or glues.  I don’t want to hear about any horrific injuries and I don’t want to lose any followers!

Getting Started
I always start a project like this with a few sketches, it helps to fix the idea in my head and give me something to work from.  I’ve made a few projects without a sketch, but I invariably get halfway through the project and forget some of the bits I was going to do!

At this point it worth thinking about how your terrain piece will be used.  Will it be a piece that is only used infrequently or only put on display, or will it be used all the time and knocked about by carrying it from game to game?  My own terrain piece was to be a present for my 12 year old son and as such it had to be remarkably hard wearing.  This meant a thick plywood base, solid wall construction and minimal details (so no flagpoles, delicate wooden doors, fences etc), all these decisions will influence your decisions on specific materials to use, though the overall types of material and method of construction will be the same.

An important aspect of making a terrain piece like this is the overall size.  You’ll need to consider how big your gaming table is and how much storage space you have available.  After making my initial sketches I cut out a couple of possible base shapes and sizes out of card to make sure the overall ‘footprint’ of the piece would be right.  I made the base in three parts; a centre fortress section and two walls.  This would allow ease of storage and mean that the pieces could be used individually or all together.  When I was happy with my shapes, I drew around them onto my plywood and started cutting.

Earlier this year I had wisely invested some of my money in a scroll saw, this is a very fast moving saw that can cut twisting and curing shapes through a variety of materials.  This was perfect for cutting the curving shapes of my base and it went through my plywood with ease.  When the pieces had been cut I checked that they fitted together correctly and sanded down any rough edges.

 
Making the Walls
When the base pieces had been cut, I went back to my sketches to check where my walls would be on the base and then drew the outline of where I wanted them to go.  The next stage was the most time consuming, casting all the plaster blocks that I needed, fortunately, most of the time is taken up by waiting for the plaster to set, so I could get on with other things.
To make the walls, I laid blocks out over the top of the marks I had drawn on the bases to make sure the size and shape were correct and then glued them together with PVA or wood glue.  DO NOT glue them to the base at this stage, just to each other.  I made my wall sections upside down, I started with the layer of blocks that would form the walkway on top of the wall and then added rows, finishing with the row that would be glued to the base, the reason for doing this is that it allows you to miss out blocks on the bottom row so that the wall will be at an angle when it is attached to the base, enhancing the ruined look.

When these blocks had set, I attached them to the base using two-part epoxy, sanding the bottom of the wall down first to ensure that it would fit smoothly to the plywood and provide a good area for the glue.

I left this overnight to ensure the epoxy had fully set and then used some more blocks to add crenelations (the wavy bits bits that archers hide behind) to the top of the wall.  At this point, I would recommend having one of your gaming figures to hand to make sure that can see over your walls on the walkway, you don’t want to spend all this time creating a defensive position that the defenders can’t see out from!

When all the extra blocks and crenelations have been added your wall should look as good as new, so it’s time to do a bit of battle damage.  I took a pair of old cutters I had around the house and used them to break chunks out of the plaster, focusing the worst (or best) of the damage on the ends of the walls.  This is great fun and will give you a good effect, don’t be shy with the damage either, the badder the better.

Making the Floors
At this point you can make the floors for the top of the walkway of the wall.  I often use planks to cover floors on terrain pieces, but time I wanted to try something a little easier and more fitting the subject.  I read a post on The Miniatures Page about using textured wallpaper to represent floor tiles so I thought I’d give it a go.  Rather than rushing out and buying a whole roll, I found a website selling embossed wallpaper who offer free sample sheets (A4 size) to potential customers, I ordered a couple of styles that I thought may be suitable and got them through the post a couple of days later.  If you have a local DIY or home improvement shop, they’ll probably be happy to give you some samples, you could be really cheeky and take in a miniature with you to make sure that the scale is correct!

Rather than sticking this straight onto the top of the wall, I glued it onto some thin balsa wood cut to size to provide a bit more strength and prevent any of the stone effect on the top of the blocks used for the wall showing through.  I then gave this a bit of a trim and glued it onto the top of the wall using two part epoxy to form a strong bond.

I think that's enough for you all to be getting on with for the time being, I’ll continue my build next time, happy gaming!

EDIT: Part 2 can be found here.

What I Did On My Holidays

It's been two weeks and, as planned, the basics of the board are there and laid out.

I did end up spending about £24 on this, but I got significantly more for my money than I would have done if I'd been a fool and bought that GW kit. I ended up shelling out for a litre tin of mid-brown emulsion paint that's a close match for Vallejo Earth, 500 ml of sand base from an art shop and 300 ml of matte medium to make it go further (and I still have some left for making hills and suchlike, too). Flock was free, courtesy of our glorious host, and I still have half the tub left there as well.

I'm still sulking, though - partly because I didn't need QUITE that much paint (I was startled while calculating how much I'd need and misplaced the decimal point - at least I have enough for every terrain making project I'm likely to do, ever, and then some) and partly because while I was buying the paint I found an even more Frugal option that would have saved me a fair bit of time and money.

Homebase, bless them, sell a mid-brown textured spray paint at about £7.50 for a 400ml can. Having already bought and applied the sand base and matte medium, I didn't get the chance to play about with it, but I suspect two cans ought to be more than enough for a 4'x4' board... so if you want to texture and paint a board in one easy step and spend £10 less than I did, that might be the way to go. I think my Frugal Year might be turning into a "do as I say, not as I do" enterprise...

Trees! Made by our gracious host Dave's method, entirely out of stuff I found in the cupboard, where it had lingered for several years, unused and unremembered - thick card, florists' wire, Milliput, Windsor and Newton brown/black inks and the last of the matte medium (and some water). The only thing I bought new for these was the lichen - two bags of Landscape Scenics stuff, of which I still have about two-thirds of a bag left. Not sure what I'm going to do with that - maybe moss on the buildings when I get around to doing those, or a 10mm forest for Hordes of the Things.

River! I gave the entire board a wash of that W&N ink + matte medium + water mix to bring the texture back out after I'd emulsioned it, and the river is just PVA (we have a lot of PVA glue) layered over that. I'm not a hundred per cent happy with it, but not sure what to do about it either. I'm not going to just paint it blue (for the same reason that my treetrunks aren't plain brown), I know that much.

Game! Yes, I haven't forgotten about that essential 'spend less, game more' mission, even if I do spend half my time waffling about ephemera like 'emotional investment' - there is a point to all this scrimping and saving and building and painting, after all. Shiny's Warmachine army has finally arrived in strength and we played a couple of games yesterday afternoon to celebrate. I shan't bend anyone's ear about them here, but keep your eyes on my personal blog if you're interested.

A Night To Remember

As I mentioned before, I plan to hold more Games Nights this year than I have previously. Here’s what I’ve found that works for me, but I’m refining my process continually and if anyone else has any advice I’d be happy to try it out next time.

Know Your Audience - “What Do I Do Again?”

Not everyone games like a wargamer games. Wargamers are a little scary, they can assimilate any rules system almost on contact, and be playing the game without the rulebook in under ten minutes. However, not everyone has this ability. They need a little more time to pick something up, and maybe a couple of practice runs.

Knowing what sort of people have come to your games night is important, unless you want to be a speaking rulebook all evening!

Know Your Audience – “Has Someone Won Yet?”

Some games take a long time. Everyone’s been part of a 30-hour Monopoly marathon, where four players are gripping onto their last mortgaged properties in the face of the last two players, who’ve neatly divided the board between them. Being one of those destitute four is not fun. Games with clear end goals are best – ones that state that ‘the winner is the first to grab the McGuffin’ are better than ‘the last one standing’.

Cheat Sheets

If you know what games you’re playing in advance, get an A3 pad and some marker pens and make some quick bullet-point notes to remind people of key rules. Good things to put on these reminder sheets are the win conditions, the order of actions in a turn, or the options available to a player. As noted above (“What do I do again?”) if you need to use too many bits of paper, you might have picked a complicated game!

Bit of Fun

One thing we ask people to do is to bring along a token or pawn for themselves to use in the games. Wargaming friends are likely to bring a painted model, whereas normal people usually bring more interesting or unusual things (a bolt, small crystal, box of staples, etc). I recommend limiting to things that generally balance themselves and are no more than an inch square at the base. I reserve some goblins for people who neglect to bring their own.

Survival Considerations

This is less specific games advice and more basic party etiquette – you should have a selection of sweet and savoury snacks, and drinks around. We normally ask people to bring their own beer, and stock up on cheap colas ourselves. Popcorn will go a long way. Another good practice is to appoint someone as Pizza Prefect. It is their job to memorise a takeaway pizza menu, calculate available offers, sort out what each individual wants and then make the order. If you happen to be ordering a lot of pizza, you may get an additional discount.

It's time to get started...

Hi everyone, and welcome to a new Year of Frugal Gaming, I hope you're enjoying the posts from Pete and Von, I'm really pleased to have them on board and I'm interested to see how their Frugal Years unfold. If you fancy spending less and gaming more, then take up your own Year of Frugal Gaming. All you need to do is commit to watching your spending on gaming items by concentrating on good quality essentials that you know will get used, combine this with a dedication to playing more games and you're on your way. Hey, you only need to keep it up for 12 months, how hard can it be? If you're really keen, post a comment on the site or send me an email (to thefrugalgamer(at)gmail.com), I'm always looking for more contributors so drop me a line and I can give you posting rights on the blog if you fancy!

Anyway, back to reality, I'm afraid that my own year is not off to the best of starts. On the plus side, I haven't spent any money on gaming products so far, though this has to be balanced against the fact that I've not actually done any gaming this year, yikes! I think I need to get off my bum and arrange some gaming evenings, this might inspire me to get the paints out as well and get a bit of gaming momentum.

Speaking of which; this week I went to visit Von and drop him off some flock for his game board (see previous post) and picked up a boar chariot from him to go with my (yet to be started) Goblin army project. I'm got plenty of night goblins, a giant and various other units, I've even got the Army book, but I've still to get it all sorted out. Let's not even mention my Dark Eldar force for 4ok, though I did manage to pick up lovely metal tool box to keep it in (a mere £2!), my plan is to add magnets to the bases of the figs so that I can carry them around without them falling all over the place (or paying a fortune for a GW case).
As a gaming related aside, I've even started looking forward to this Christmas. One of my intentions this year is to make all the Christmas presents I'm giving, the first one I want to get started on is a piece of gaming scenery for my son (don't worry, he doesn't read this blog!) I've seen an awesome bit of terrain I intend to take inspiration from over at Doctor Merkury's Lab, a fantastic site which is well worth checking out. I hope he doesn't mind me stealing his photo!
And finally... I've now added a search box to the blog so you don't have to trawl through all the articles to find what you want. I've also added Facebook and Twitter functions so that you can post the latest blog entry to your Facebook page. Try it out, spread the word and let me know how you get on!

Happy Gaming

It's drawing to an end...

This week I've been working on some gaming related presents for friends and family, so I can't post any photos of them here, in case they're watching! I'll post some photos up after Christmas so you can all see what I've been up to. Instead, here's my workbench (complete with homemade painting station) with the articles in question removed...
Meeting the Pope
Yesterday my old mucker Jackson Pope, head of Reiver Games (you'll remember him from this interview) was visiting Clifton Road Games in Exeter to demo some of his boardgames. It was good to see Jack again and we played a couple of his excellent games and had a bit of a catch up. I was very impressed with Clifton Road games, it's a little bit out of the city centre and was a little tricky to find, but I was amazed when I got in there. The staff were very friendly, the range of games and miniatures was huge and the store had a huge room at the back with loads of tables for gaming. They run games nights during the week, so I may have to see if it's feasible for me to travel up there for an evening during the week. I'll certainly pop in there for miniatures in the future, the postage on my last order from an online retailer would have covered the cost of a train ticket for me to travel to the shop and pick it up. If you're in the area, I'd recommend checking it out.

Jack has recently posted on his blog, Creation and Play, about the cost of manufacturing boardgmes, it's a really interesting article and makes good reading for anyone who is thinking of making and selling games as a business.

Making and doing and selling...
The past couple of weeks, I've been putting my modelling skills to the test by sculpting and painting Christmas decorations. I finally put a load on sale at a local craft fair and they sold quite well. I also managed to make a few trades with other stall holders. Remember, if you fancy buying any of my zombie or rockabilly related Christmas decorations, click the links on the right of the page, I promise to spend any money made on gaming or modelling equipment, thanks! If you fancy some decorations but are being Frugal with your money, I'm always up for trades, email me (through the FAQ) and we'll see what we can arrange.
In addition I've been putting a load of old bits and pieces up for sale on ebay, a few copies of White Dwarf, a couple of Judge Dredd Comics and a few other books as well, go and have a look by clicking on the 'ebay' link on the right.

Mac Army Builder Required
As well as making decorations and gifts, I've also been keeping an eye on painting more of my Dark Eldar. Unfortunately, my inspiration is leaving me and I need to sit down and write an Army list. I'm currently building my own spreasdheet on excel to keep track as I own a Mac so Army Builder won't work. Does anyone have any recommendations? Are there are any other Mac owning DE players that have an electronic list that I could get a copy of? As per usual, email me if you can help out.

And Finally...
Alas my year of Frugal Gaming only has a month left to run; of course, the site will continue with my occasional thoughts and ramblings, and you're all allowed to join in (see this post). Over the next few weeks, I'll be looking back over my past year in gaming and seeing how I managed to get on against the Frugal Gaming goals I set myself at the beginning of the year. If you have any specific questions relating to my experiences over the year, drop me a line and I'll try to answer them in my posts!