A little chat.

Having played an excellent game of Lingships - Wrath of the Vikings at the club on Friday, Ade and I discussed future projects.

Neither of us are averse to selling one project to fund another. But what? Ade revealed a hankering to do a large 28mm project where he collects both sides and creates bespoke scenery. The sort of thing you might see at a show. Periods under consideration are Carlist Wars (lovely!), Napoleonics, Wars of the Roses and a couple of others I can't recall.

This got me thinking about that unlimited time and unlimited funds project that we all must dream of doing. The criteria being it must be one period in one scale. To be honest I'm not sure I could choose. I've mentioned dozens of times over the life of this blog my love for the ACW and how when I started at the club we'd play big games on a 12x6 table using Dixon miniature on beautiful home made terrain.

But I'm not sure I'd want to do this kind of game anymore. RFCM rules by Peter Pig give me the variety of periods I like. The figures are beautiful and look nice with my painting style. Games on a 5x3 mean I can build or buy my own scenery to play on. And games are done in a night. For me it's the perfect combination and I'm not sure that money could buy me anything better. As for time I'm happy spending what hobby time I have painting my 15mm figures. Sure I'd like to play more but who wouldn't?

Another discussion we had was what might be called the 'opportunity cost' decisions of how to spend your hobby time. If we collect 1 period in 1 scale, then 100% of your hobby time can be spent researching, collecting, painting and playing that period.

Add in a second period and at most you'll have 50% of your time to spend on either of them. The reality of course is that the latest shiny project will demand a greater percentage of your time and the original project will languish with barely a second glance.

Now say you have 10 periods that you want to play. For most of us our hobby time is finite. Rarely do we get any increase ither than possibly on retirement, but most retired people  I know are busier than ever. So the maximum time you could spend equally on each period would be 10%.

Now if you attend a club say for 4 hours once per week and manage 4 hours of 'hobby time during the rest of the week that's roughly 32 hours of hobby time in a month. Those 10 projects? Well you'd be lucky to  get a game in with 4 of them per month. Play let's say 50 games in a year and each period would get played 5 times. And that's if you behave like no Wargamer that I know of and divide your hobby time like this. Most of us will follow 1 period for say 3 or 4 months whilst the inspiration is strong before moving onto the next period for a similar period. Which means 7 of your chosen periods will unlikely make an appearance within a calender year.

That's figures that you have purchased and possibly spent hours and hours painting, sitting in a Really Useful box on a shelf unloved and awaiting their inevitable fate of ebay or a bring and buy. The proceeds of which you will no doubt plough into another project or period to maintain the status quo of 10 periods.

I reckon I have at least 14 historical periods on the go at the moment. I also play some fantasy and sci fi.

You do the maths!