LOW COST WARGAMES

Or how to set up a nice game board on a budget...

Many people who wants to play Fear of the Dark tell me that the game requires some different terrain, and in fact that's true, as you need to represent different settings (a secluded house, a cabin in the woods, a forest, a small town...), but my answer is always that although this hobby is quite expensive, everything can be done in a cheaper way. 

Many times, when I say that I play solo, most people think that I must have spent a huge amount of money in miniatures and terrain. As a solo player you have to buy everything by yourself and keep it at home. 

The miniature wargames' hobby has always been seen as a expensive hobby only within the reach of gaming clubs or people who can spend that amount of money by themselves. 

We are used to seeing enormous boards covered m with huge armies of fully painted miniatures, with lots of resin scenery, tree forests, rivers, mountains and lots of terrain pieces.

A bit scary, isn't it?

And even scarier when it comes to playing solo, in that case all expenses are assumed by only one person...

Well, in this article I'll try to explain that it's not that expensive to make a gaming board good enough to play...

Let's start with the figures, there are miniatures of all types and sizes: lead, resin, plastic, 28mm, 20mm, 15mm ...

Prices will vary according to size, material, brand...

If your idea is to make yourself a large army, then there is a range that is unbeatable in terms of price: the 20mm or 1/72 scale, it has a large number of different historical periods, ranges, units and whatever you are looking for, generally in plastic and always with prices more than affordable.

On the other side, I advise you to play skirmish games, which generally deal with two bands of up to 10 models each, which will be a maximum of 20 models... a quite reasonable cost regardless of the models you choose.

When playing Fear of the Dark you will use between 5 an 10 miniatures per side, what makes it an affordable game in terms of figures. 

As for game boards, we will see them of all kinds: 3d modular wood boards, made to order, professional mats printed in neoprene... but one of the simplest solutions is a green felt mat with an approximate cost of 3€ (and it's not a joke) that can be purchased at any fabric store...

If we talk about terrain, there are all different  kinds: we can find terrain made of resin, plastic, 3D printed (PLA or resin)... with different prices according to the quality or size of the piece

But returning to the idea of making this hobby cheaper, I have to advise you that you can find terrain pieces on the Internet ready to print them on paper of cardboard and make them ourselves with very good results.

Nice gaming table, isn't it? Well... All the buildings and even the roads are papercraft, and they were less than 10€... 

We also have a lot of terrain pieces at quite reduced prices in Asian distributors, be they physical stores or online (aliexpress).

The last and perhaps most important terrain pieces are the handmade, made of any material we can imagine (cardboard, Eva foam, wood, coffee stirrers, cardboard...) and here the limit is our imagination and our skill.

Internet is full of tutorials with different degrees of difficulty to make almost any piece of terrain possible.

And with these guidelines we can set up a game board without spending much money, which is quite important if we intend to play alone without applying for a bank loan.

And to finish this article, what better than to make a practical example, this is a game board in which I have played a game.

Let's see the cost of this 90x90 cms gaming board:

the felt mat 2'5€ (1x1 meter)
Houses printed on cardboard 6€
Trees 4€
Road 2€ (cork board)
Fences 2.50€
Walls (ordered in 3D printer) 5€
River and bridge handmade (approximate cost 4€)
Various pieces (boxes, barrels ...) 8€
Crop fields (artificial grass samples, free on internet companies)


34€ for a quite nice 90x90 game board... 

As you can see, it is not difficult or expensive to get started in this hobby, or at least it is as expensive as we want it to be.

And from here I encourage you to start playing Fear of the Dark, setting up your own low cost gaming board, starting with the basics: game mat and trees, then you make some paths or roads, a river (even if it is a short section), with a river you have an excuse for a bridge, the houses are really cheap and quick to make and they are wonderful on a table...

And step by step, little by little, when you want to realize, you will have terrain to fill several boards with even different settings...

(this post was originally posted by me a year ago in The Lone Warrior blog)