My Opinion on the Costs of Wargaming

My Space Marine Army.  I have to much here. And one is painted.

I see everyone online is up in arms about price raises and whatnot from their favorite miniature company.  There are also posts comparing wargaming to video gaming or whatever.  Here in my smallest of corners of the internet I thought I would just compare my wargaming costs to my other hobbies.  I usually refrain from adding up and knowing the cost of my various hobbies, but since this is for a cause, I will break the rule.

First, I will say that as it is a hobby, costs shouldn't be considered.  A hobby is something you choose to do in your spare time.  I do not have the funds to purchase all the models I would like.  This is okay, I just buy the ones you want/need to play the game.  You don't have to have every model GW makes to have fun.  I also do a lot of trading/selling of my older models before purchasing new ones.  I probably only spend $100-$200 dollars of my income per year on wargaming even though I may spend over $1000.  The remaining funds come from ebaying old models.

For the sake of this article though we will consider the costs for a new player starting the game vs my other personal hobbies.  I am using my hobbies as I know the costs of them for sure.  There are plenty of hobbies out there that costs more than wargaming, in fact most hobbies costs more.  They are hobbies because they are afforded with disposable income.  The more disposable income, the more expensive the hobby, think sports car racing, yachting, flying airplanes(not RC ones), etc.  Our hobby is a lower end hobby, whether you believe that or not.

A new player coming into the game will need to purchase the following most likely:
Main Rulebook
Codex of their choice
Army of their choice, minimum 1000 pts
Super Glue
Plastic Glue
Hobby Knife
Primer
Few paints

The above would probably be around $600 to start.  This could be broken down into a few months purchases.  IMO it should take a new player around a year to get their first 2,000 pts built and painted.  We'll say the total for everything you need to get going that first year would be around $1,200.  This would include a competitive 2,000 pt army and enough tools and paints to get it built, painted and based.  No this doesn't include fancy carrying cases, resin bases or Forgeworld bits.  Breaking this cost down, thats around $100 a month for first year.

The good thing about wargaming is that after that first year the cost can go way down.  It can go as low as none, if you are content with the army you built and just want to play.  Now, we know no one is content, so lets say you add a new army every year.  Again you'll need a few paints, but you'll already have the tools.  

Wargaming is a hobby where you get what you put in.  If you want you can buy terrain and play at home, or you can build your own cheap.  With the internet you can find how-tos on almost anything terrain related.  If you want to paint better look online, learn new techniques, practice.  And if you want to save more money, buy from online retailers like The Warstore.  They offer 20% off retail on new things and is most of the time easier than hassling with ebay.  If you get lucky on ebay though, there are some better deals to be had.  I do say if you have a FLGS that you play at frequently you should buy at least some product there so you'll have a place to play.  If you get too cheap, you'll being playing in some shady dude's basement.

This is getting long so I will add a part 2 putting the costs of my other personal hobbies in a separate post.  So far, though I am seeing that for around $20-$25 dollars a week you can have a great hobby, continuously adding new units, models, armies, terrain pieces, paints/tools to your collection.  You can't even smoke cigarettes for this little money and they kill you.  I say stop the whining and play the game and have some fun.

Part 2 will show some real costs of my other hobbies.

Another 'Ardboyz Practice Game - Shrike/Vulkan vs Deathwing

I was able to get in another game with my 'Ardboyz list against reklawsj Friday morning.   He is in that glorious transition phase between finishing college and starting real life, so he had a chance to get in another game before moving to Charlotte.

He tweaked the Deathwing list for this game.  He took out 2 units of the terminators and added a Landraider Crusader and 2 dreadnoughts.  This leaves 6 troops choices filled with units of 5 termies.  Three of these units have 5 TH&SS plus a Cyclone, while the other 3 pitch one hammer for a chainfist.  The seventh squad is an elite unit and is also 5 hammers with a Cyclone and the Librarian and Belial attached to ride in Crusader.  Belial also pulled out the claws for this game.

We rolled up a Seized Ground Mission with 4 objectives and Pitched Battle setup.  I'm not doing a full battle report, just some highlights and a summary.  We played to a 2.5 hr time limit.

After setup, I seized the initiative.  Normally, in an objective mission I would not have attempted this, but he had a juicy Landraider that I could alpha strike with my Storm Scouts and/or Dreadnought.  This list gives me four chances to take down heavy tanks before game starts.   It should be noted he didn't reserve any models, not using the Deathwing assault rule as last game.

So, I go first deepstriking the Dreadnought right in front of his all army.  The Storm also moves 12 inches and drops the scouts a couple inches from the Landraider.  The Scouts whiffed their shot with point blank melta on the Raider, but the Storm came through getting an exploded result and removing it from the table.  No casualties inside, but they are on foot now.  The Dreadnought stuns one of his dreads, neutralizing it for a turn.

In his turn, he charge my dreadnought with character unit and only removed weapon.  My dread held this unit up for four rounds of combat against 5 thunder hammers.  This was awesome and let me do work on opposite side of the board.  On opposite side of board he charged my Shrike unit with 2 of his units.  Next turn I would add Vulkan and his unit to this melee fest.  He would also feed 2 more units into this grinder.  After 3 turns my 15 termies took down 20 of his termies in combat, with only loss of 8 of mine and Vulkan was insta-killed by Hammer early on.

By turn 3 I had mopped up left side of board and started moving my combat squadded tactical squads toward 2 of the objectives.  I also started trudging through building in center with leftover termies, heading for more kills.  By turn 4 I had 2 objectives solidly in my control with no way he could contest.  I also had a 3rd objective in my control, but he would get there with 2 units before end game, so I also started getting my Landspeeders in position for last turn contesting.  But going first hurt this as he just Cycloned these in his turn.

After 5 turns we rolled and game ended.  We each had 2 objectives controlled with scoring units for the draw.

This was an attrition game for both of us.  He had to get the charge on my termies or lose combat, unless using multiple units.  My master-crafted hammers were very good.  It also must be said that his dice hated him the entire game and mine were on fire again.  At one point he put 13 wounds on my TH&SS unit with his Thunder hammers.  I proceeded to only fail one of these invulnerable saves, the other 12 were all 4 or better.  Ridiculous!

With the strength of his army, I could only feed termies to grinder, hoping to hold his units from slogging to objectives so I could win.  The rest of my army had to use hit and run tactics or just run, haha.  In the end, I didn't slow him down enough on my right side.  Oh well, it was an awesome game.  I finally got to use my Storm Scouts/Podding Dreadnought alpha strike.  Taking down the Raider paid for all of this, not to mention my Dread holding for 4 rounds of combat.

So, I think lists are pretty much finalized already.  I have a few models to build to get the army completely WYSIWIG, while my cousin has decided his Deathwing will be built as the First Company of the Salamanders.  This will go well with his normal Salamander army he has used to make it to 'Ardboyz Semi-finals these last two years.  Hopefully, he'll put up some posts once work starts on the building of this army.  He has great plans.  They will all be padded up with Forgeworld shoulderpads and be put on Secret Weapon Lava Flow Resin Bases.

This was probably the last game we'll get in before August, so I hope we're ready for whatever shows up.  At least we have a little experience with our armies this year.  The last two years I have played with lists I only wrote and never played with until tournament day.  This lack of practice put me in 4th two years ago and 2nd last year.

Salamanders vs Deathwing - 'Ardboyz Practice Game

Last weekend, reklawsj and I got together for another 2,500 pt game to do a little practice for 'Ardboyz, albeit without the sometimes goofy missions they come up with.  I brought the Shrike/Vulkan list I used last time with only changes being missile launchers in tactical squads instead of multi-meltas.  That list can be seen here.  My cousin brought a completely different codex, as the Grey Knights didn't really measure up in the last game.  His new list was from the Dark Angels codex consisting entirely of termies.  List included:

Belial - TH&SS

Librarian with Termie Armor and Combi-melta

6 Troop Units with 5 Terminators each including 3 with TH&SS, 1 with pair lightning claws and 1 with a Cyclone Missile Launcher and Chainfist

3 Elite Units equipped same as above.

1 of the above units had the Apothecary and Banner with Belial Attached.

The game we rolled up was Spearhead & Seize Ground with 3 objectives.  The objectives were pretty much spread evenly across board center in terrain 18" apart.  We had a large building center table and ruins spread around board.

I won first turn and setup most of my army spread around my corner to minimize deepstrikers amidst my army.  I had combat squadded all 3 of tactical squads and left the heavy weapons in cover while keeping the meltagun and combi-melta in rhinos.

He next setup 2 units in his corner with rest coming in reserve.  I then infiltrated Shrike and 10 termies in front of his 2 units.

First turn, I dropped my Dreadnought in on right objective to camp out while everything else spread out to minimize large areas that would be good for deepstriking.  I shot a few times, but no saves were failed.

His turn he dropped 4 units of termies onto board.  Only 1 of these landed in my deployment zone while others spread out to reinforce ones already on board.  A rhino was immobilized as was the dreadnought from missile fire.

After this I moved my termies up to engage, while rest of army poured fire into termie squads.  The Feel No Pain unit with Belial was a tough unit to put wounds on.  With master crafted hammers and more storm shields in my termie units, I found that I was winning combat more often, but fearless was keeping the Deathwing around.

We were only able to play 4 turns before running out of time.  This was mostly attributed to not being really familiar with Deathwing and the wound allocation and different saves on those units.  Initiative orders in combat were also ridiculous, what with characters and THs and lightning claws.

When time was called I ended up with 2 objectives while contesting the other one.  I took one with a Storm full of Scouts, another with a unit in rhino and contested his with Landraider.   I was pumped as I took down 31 of his termies in four turns with 20+ of these being killed in combat.  Another turn and he would have contested one I had with Rhino unit and probably taken down my raider, resulting in a tie.  And with turn 5 my Attack Bikes would have shown up automatically from reserve instead of missing entire game.

This was a surprising result for me, as I was pretty worried about facing down 47 Terminators, 28 of which had Storm Shields.  I know he is tweaking the list to throwdown more Storm shields for a game tomorrow.  I again will keep same list, as I like the flexibility it has and with 2 hammer units, it is pretty tough to crack.  Not to mention my bad dice rolling is not much of a factor when everything is twin-linked or master-crafted.

I'll let you know if tomorrow's games ends in victory again or if the tweaked list and different tactics change the game.  We always have an after game theory session and tactics talk to discuss where each of us could have done differently.  We both agreed that the Deathwing list needs more Storm Shields and that they would be more effective if all together in large mass.  This game they were really spread out across board and coming in different turns of game.  I was able to pick my battles, using superior numbers to push combat my way before his other units could react.  Next time, I will not be so lucky.

Well, crappy report I know, but what you think?  Is my list ready for 'Ardboyz? How would you tweak his?  Or do both suck so bad we shouldn't even show up for 'Ardboyz?

Troll Axer Painted Pics

Finally, I had a little time Friday to finish this guy up.  The pictures are not good again, but as soon as get pMadrak finished I will have a fully painted 25 pt list.  At that point I will get out the light box for some family photos.  These large models are still giving me fits with the time they take to do even decently well.  So, check him out.

You see the small troll and not the massive mold line.  I hate you metal model & I am lazy.

Next up for painting is pMadrak to finish the 25 pt list I have going.  After that it's on to my Grim Angus Tier List.  That means assembling the huge stack of metal models I have been ignoring.  

In other hobby related news, tomorrow I am having another 'Ardboyz practice game with reklawsj using the Shrike/Vulkan list I posted a couple weeks ago.  He is bringing 47 termies with TH/SS.  Gonna be a tough one.  I will post my thoughts on the game and lists next week.

Troll Impaler Painted Pics

Here are a few pics of the Impaler I finished up after the Mauler.  I liked this model a lot until I started painting it.  There are tons of little details in there that required different colors.  I am not the most creative person when it comes to color schemes/theory.  I just tried to keep all the details toned down and make the skin bright and colorful so it pops on the table.  Mostly earthy tones of browns and brownish greens, plus dirty metal.

Too bad the skin color is a mix I made up 6 years ago and I have no idea how to replicate it.  At the time I made 3 successive layers of color and a wash for a Lizardmen army that never really got off the ground.  So, check out the really sunny pics.

Over the weekend I made some great progress on the Axer.  Just a few more washes on the metal to get the look I'm after and then highlighting of skin and finishing the base.  So, hopefully another hour and he'll be finished.  This will finish my 15 pt list, except for painting pMadrak.  I will probably save my warlocks for last and just start on a unit next to get away from the beasts for a while.

Below is a pic of my Hordes gaming case with the models I have currently built and painted.  I will have to upgrade my case when I build the stack of models I just purchased though.  I'm not sure where I want to go next on the painting after completed Axer.  Krielstone Bearer and Scribes, another beast, or something I haven't even built yet.

Dire Troll Mauler Painted Pics

Finally got around to snapping some pics of the Dire Troll Mauler I finished up a while back.  This is one of my favorite Privateer Press sculpts and probably the one that drew me into their games and Trolls especially.  He is awesome looking with an extremely dynamic pose.  

I'm not really used to painting models this large, so it was quite an endeavor.  I started by airbrushing basecoat since the model is 90% muscle.  I then blacked out all the details and went to work.  Taking the pictures outside washed out a little bit of the more extreme highlights, but I think you can still see most of the depth of color.

The hardest part was picking a color for the bony/stony/? protrusions coming from his skin.  I ended up just giving them a coat of gloss varnish.  This served two purposes.  First, it keeps the paint from rubbing off on these sharp bits that get handled most during gaming.  This was a huge plus.  Also, it kinda self highlights, so it saved me some work.  

If I ever finish painting my battlegroup I will get the lightbox out for some family photos.  With spring here, I have been super busy outside doing yardwork and gardening when I'm not working or playing with the children.  Hope to get some my half-started Axer finished soon.  I also have lots more Trolls purchased that need building. I wish I didn't hate metal models so much.

Grey Knights vs Salamanders - 'Ardboyz Practice Game

Lately, I have been spending some time trying to come up with a list I want to take to 'Ardboyz this year.  And yeah, yeah I know 2,500 pts you can take whatever you want.  And while this is true, so can everyone else.  To me it is much harder to make a strong all-comers list that can win at 2,500 as it is almost impossible to include something to take down whatever the opponent will bring.  In smaller games, like 1,500, you only have to be ready for the 2 or 3 best units from each codex, because that is what the competitive guys will spam.  IMO.

Finally, I had a chance to get in a game with reklawsj to test the list I wrote up.  He finally finished his college career, so now has a short break before real life starts.  He wanted to test a Grey Knights list he wrote up so he could tweak for the tournament in August.  He has made it to semis the last two years using his Salamanders and wanted a change.  I finished 4th two years ago with Chaos and 3rd last year with IG to get into semis, where we both got owned, haha.

My most recent list thoughts have included being on the opponent as early game as possible with as much of my army as possible.  Not necessarily an alpha-strike concept, just a you now need to deal with this half of my army now, and when you do, the other half arrives.  This is a tough concept to explain and even harder to find a codex that does this effectively.  For this year, I finally decided on a Vulkan list with a side of Shrike.

My list consists of:

Shrike with 10 TH/SS termies infiltrating
Vulkan with 5 TH/SS termies in LR Redeemer
3 units of Tactical Marines in Rhinos with combi-melta, meltagun, multimelta
1 unit of Scouts with combi-melta/meltabomb Srg in Landspeeder Storm with Multimelta
3 Attack Bikes with Multimelta
2 Landspeeders with Multimelta/Heavy Flamers
1 Dreadnought with Multimelta/Heavy Flamer in Drop Pod

His Grey Knight List consisted of:

Coteaz with Henchmen in Chimera(psykers and plasmacannons)
3 Strike Squads with 10 dudes in Rhinos - 2 psycannons, some hammers, halberds, etc
2 Interceptor Squads with 10 dudes - 2 psycannons and few hammers in each
Vindicare
2 Techmarines with Orbital Relays
Dreadnought with lascannons
Think that is all

We learned a lot about our lists and a lot about the Grey Knights at once.  We played Spearhead deployment with 3 objectives.  I had first turn, but got seized by Coteaz, this hurt.  I had scouted by Storm up for the alpha attack and had Shrike with buddies in open 18" out.  After Grey Knights first turn, the Storm was a wreck(Chimera), the Redeemer was exploded(Vindicare made this look easy), a Rhino was immobilized(psycannons are good), and I had lost 2 termies from Shrikes unit(misc shooting).  The only good part was his psykers rolled boxcars and all died.  I was pretty down after this turn, before I even started to play.  Funny, because my army is all about this same principle.  Devastate opponent early on and overwhelm his side of board before game starts for him.  Irony.  I think I told him too much of my plan when I came up with the list.

We decided to continue, thinking that if I could pull this one out the list had some balls.  Keeping this short, I essentially just ran both units of termies as fast as possible toward him.  Dreadnought dropped, missed, died.  Shrike charged a unit and was mercilessly cut down by daemon hammers after killing only 3 dudes.  I isolated the right half of the board using the termies as tarpits.  I had one objective easily on right flank and tried to contest another on left, but he cut down my unit.  He used a shunt move from an Interceptor squad to slow down another one of my units going for the middle objective, while he tank-shocked through my termies with a Strike Squad to take the objective in his fifth turn.  We timed this game so knew this was end game.  I used my Attack bike to run to left objective and contest, one down.  For the middle unit, I was able to pop rhino with bikes, and assaulted strike squad with termies pulling them from objective.  The Interceptor squad was annihilated by hammers and  Vulkan.

So, end game saw me having one objective and contesting the other two.  Awesome game with huge swings of luck and dice rolling.  Mine were terrible early, but heated up.  I must have made at least 50 saves on the termies with another 30 storm shield saves made.  At end game I still had 7 of the 15 remaining, keeping in mind all of these walked across the board.

What did we learn?  I learned why he always plays Salamanders, Vulkan is awesome.  All those re-rolls are invaluable in a game using dice.  Shrike and his unit didn't take tons of early game fire as I hoped.  Of course, he knew I wanted them to absorb everything while the rest of the army got into position, so he didn't fall for it.  The list did well even without the LR, the Storm and Scouts died immediately and the dreadnought whiffed.  This will not keep any of these out though, because the Storm is cheap and can gain it's points back three-fold in right situation as goes for the the dreadnought.  I want more practice games is all.

On the Grey Knight side we saw a few things.
Vindicare Assassin is a must in any list, he kills things, anythings.

Techmarines with Orbital Relays - Overhyped for sure, don't think after 10 shots they even killed a model.  Bolster defences would have been nice, but I never shot at these units.

Grey Knights need to sit and shoot until time comes to pull out their power weapons and go to work on leftovers.  They die like marines, but can get the jump on you with those halberds.  I think would have been more effective if my armor saves weren't on fire with the storm shields.

Dreadnought was fine until I hit him in head with a hammer.  My list lacked any psykers and little shooting so didn't see fortitude or aegis at work.

Fun times for sure, even with crappy first turn for me, I can't wait to see what he comes up with next.  The Grey Knights book has potential, it will just take some games to figure them out.  I do wish the psyker squad had performed better as I think they would have helped thin the termies down alot.