From Plans to Budget

[Konstantinos Travlos]

Here is my final plans for the next five year period hobby-wise, and my budget. What are your thoughts?

https://newleadheadphd.blogspot.com/2023/01/new-plans-budget.html

With Respect

KTravlos

 

[Chris Pringle]

Didn’t von Moltke say something about no plan surviving contact with the enemy?  😉

I don’t know how far $100 will go on 28mm terrain? But perhaps far enough to fill a 3’x3′ table.

Anyway, the plan and budget look sensibly modest and very achievable. Best of luck with it all and I look forward to following your progress.

Chris

[Jim Webster]

At one level, before looking at the budget I would check your age and marital status 🙂

But the other think is that is five years some of the rules you want in hard copy could be picked up on a bring and buy for little money, whereas some of the figures you want you might not be able to find at all, of somebody has sack of them to sell but wants $40 per hundredweight 🙂

https://jimssfnovelsandwargamerules.wordpress.com/

[Sane Max]

I would say, unless that’s already factored in, that you can make major savings by making your own terrain?

If that’s already factored in, you are making too much terrain!

[Tony Hughes]

My problem isn’t allocating or affording the financial hit but where I’m going to find the time to get all the current projects (plus all the planned ideas that I’m itching to buy) to a playable state. I’m retired and with plenty of time to spend on hobbies but I’m also old and slowing down so it seems to take longer to get stuff done. I still spend more time painting than I do playing but need to get that sorted out to a more reasonable proportion than it is now.

Problem with any plan is that it doesn’t last long when confronted with reality.

 

[Norm S]

The main difficulty that I see with a 5 year spending plan is factoring in what is presently (in the UK at least) raging inflation. It is presently just over 10%, so in real terms in just this year alone your $1600 budget will lose some $160 in buying power.

There is probably an argument to buy as much of this as is affordable now and then undertake not to make the equivalent future spend, so that in essence you still have a capped 5 year budget.

Again, in a 5 year plan, you could defer buying anything until say year 3, then buy a 3D printer when the technology is better and cheaper and that might then become a cost effective way to complete the rest of your plans (who knows!).

You are a lucky gamer if over the next 5 years your interests and wants remain the same as they do today 🙂

 

[willz]

Having downsized my collection I am doing three periods, Medieval 25mm, 18th century 28/30mm and 20mm, WW2 20mm.  Also several board games, I suppose that’s a plan of sorts and I stick to it pretty well.  Though I notice in your budget you have not accounted for travel and visits to wargame shows.  Well done for having a forward looking plan, I don’t think I could be that organised.

[Sane Max]

Norm S wrote:

There is probably an argument to buy as much of this as is affordable now

Hear, Hear! Sound Chap!

Norm S wrote:

and then undertake not to make the equivalent future spend,

Booooo! Rubbish!!

[Jim Webster]

You may need to put something into the budget for ‘oh, shiny’

A set of rules, or a book about campaigns in an area you’re already working on, or a new and definitive military history of one of your favourite wars which appears in the next five years

https://jimssfnovelsandwargamerules.wordpress.com/

[Konstantinos Travlos]

Thanks all. Married and with a child, so I am sure the hobby budget will many times be sacrificed for family stuff (as is the case this year).  Ergo the 36×36 table, one hour game template.

I purposely increased the budget by 200 USD over what I think I need to account for potential hiccups, and I am sure that I over-estimated the terrain cost (but maybe not, as I will make dedicated terrain for a couple of historical scenarios at 6mm-10mm (Fort Donelson, 2nd Kernstown, Velestino, Gribovo) , need terrain for the DBA/TTS stuff,  and want two sets of 28mm terrain, one sci-fi for Kill Team, one semi-historical for Saga Age of Magic. Better to overbudget and gain the savings, than the other way around. I do intend to make a lot of my terrain, but also want to buy some.

The end point is I prefer to have a plan (and of course it will change) then not have one. Think it as a syllabus for a course. As I always note in my syllabi, things might change (quoting Moltke) but you still want a plan. In a way it is part of the Hobby and is engagement with it. And right now I need that.

I would love to buy everything now, but as can be guessed no money no funny :p

On the “Oh Shinny” factor. I think that works more if you have a stable and dedicated wargame group of people who like trying new stuff. If you wargame group is a monoculture, or if you lack that, it actually, at least for me, is easier to resist. I.e at the start of last year I had a big Glorantha infatuation, big enough to buy the Mayhem rules, and write a army list book for it, and look at miniatures. But since nobody in my group was interested, and since I knew I was moving, it passed. It still cost me something (the Mayhem rules), but I bit the bullet on collecting miniatures.

One thing that helps is that I was never a rules hoarder.

Maybe it is the kid and feeling responsible, maybe I am getting older, but absent a stable wargames group, I just want to indulge a bit some of the things I love rather than collect a big collection or start new stuff. Almost all of the things in that project list are things I had tried in the past (Alter of Freedom, Saga, DBA, variations of 40k) or played for the last decade (BBB).

 

After almost 20 years in the hobby, I am starting to know a bit more of what I want, which is my small space. Of course things might change to the worse (really just having to focus on two of those projects over the next five years) or the better (more money, more space, more time….I think we all know this is wishful thinking).

The only big change I envision is if I find again a stable wargaming group that wants to start a new project as a group activity. In that case yes, I will chip in, as that is the best part of the hobby. But I am not sure I will have such stability in the next five years.

Wargame shows. I really never had the chance to go on that circuit (only one show in Athens, Greece, and one Seven Year Convention), and considering my life right now and the demand for professional travel, cannot see me justifying anything but day driving distance (which means 0 around here).

[Mike Headden]

I will echo all that Tony Hughes said except that I’m not even managing much painting. Too many books to read, films to see, friends to hang out with, afternoon teas to eat, family to hook up with, computer games to play ……….

There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

[Konstantinos Travlos]

The good/sad news is that try as I might I have not been able to get into computer games again. For whatever reason I can find the will to paint a hundred miniatures, set up terrain, play a miniatures game once in a while, but not to sit down and finish for example The Witcher, or Ultimate General ACW (and I do want to play the Witcher series, and Kingdom Come Deliverance) . Pretty much the only computer gaming I am doing is online with my oldest circle of friends.

Books. I love books, but I already have to read books for my job. Any extra reading is slow and steady (i.e taking a year or two to finish a book), or fast  (read in a week at most)

[Andrew Beasley]

Love the idea and wish you well with it.

If you keep your eye open on bring and buy / eBay etc you may well save money long term esp if the rules move to a new edition 🙂

I could not do it (see my last year review for a very simple plan that went to pot) but I think this way you are less likely to be caught by the butterfly / oh shiny syndrome.

Do you think tackling three different scales will limit what you can do? There is a fair chunk of scenery that cannot be shared and if you are happy  with 6mm for one period why not save some of the 15mm budget and go to 6mm for the new armies???

[Steve Johnson]

It might not work for you, but for small space gaming I’d suggest sticking to one scale, then you don’t have the issue of multiple sizes of building, terrain etc. For me 10mm works and allows me to play skirmish games up to large battles, all easily in a 3′ x 2′, 4′ x 4′ or even 2′ x 2′ space.

[Konstantinos Travlos]

The only reason I am doing 6mm ACW is because for Altar of Freedom I care more about the rules than having a collection, so wanted to go as cheap as possible, but still having a 3d effect. I already painted, but later gifted, matched 10mm armies for the same system, and do not feel a strong urge to do them again in 10mm.

For Greece-Turkey 1919-1922 unfortunately nobody makes proper miniatures and I can get away with proxies in 6mm.

To be frank 15mm is my favorite scale, but I do not think it would work well for AoF, and cannot proxy well for 1919-1922 in it.

6mm and 10mm is not an issue as I use 6mm terrain for my 10mm mass battle systems.

And DBA and TtS do not have large demands for terrain

[Konstantinos Travlos]

This is why I love this hobby. You guys are right. I should stick to 10mm for Greece-Turkey 1919-1922 and ACW (to keep a common scale of terrain). I took a another look at the Pendraken WW1 lines, and with the new pictures it is more clear that I can use a mix of WW1 Italians and French for Greeks, and Turks will be WW1 Ottomans with hat changes.

Thank you all.

[Thuseld]

Konstantinos Travlos wrote:

he good/sad news is that try as I might I have not been able to get into computer games again. For whatever reason I can find the will to paint a hundred miniatures, set up terrain, play a miniatures game once in a while, but not to sit down and finish for example The Witcher, or Ultimate General ACW (and I do want to play the Witcher series, and Kingdom Come Deliverance) . f

I find this also. My middle ground was that I can enjoy the story by watching a play through on YouTube. For example I have never played The Last of Us, or Jedi: Fallen Order. But I have watched them played through to the end and got a lot of pleasure from it. I watched them mostly while painting miniatures. I find playing computer games takes time away from other things, while watching can be done alongside something else.

Experiments here: http://inexperiencedmodelmaker.blogspot.co.uk/

Tranquil Stars updates: https://tranquilstars.wordpress.com

[Jim Webster]

Konstantinos Travlos wrote:

The good/sad news is that try as I might I have not been able to get into computer games again. For whatever reason I can find the will to paint a hundred miniatures, set up terrain, play a miniatures game once in a while, but not to sit down and finish for example The Witcher, or Ultimate General ACW (and I do want to play the Witcher series, and Kingdom Come Deliverance) . Pretty much the only computer gaming I am doing is online with my oldest circle of friends. Books. I love books, but I already have to read books for my job. Any extra reading is slow and steady (i.e taking a year or two to finish a book), or fast (read in a week at most)

I was lucky/unlucky in that computer gaming passed me by. Slow rural broadband has always meant that gaming online was never possible. Having to download stuff for a game even if playing on my own computer is also impossible.
I did get into Rome total realism, (somebody loaded the stuff onto a disc for me and I could play it from that) but it was a serious life hog and when I upgraded the computer, I never transferred stuff across 🙂

On the positive side, it’s given me more time for wargames campaigns and suchlike with real figures 🙂

So perhaps don’t look on it as a negative, just as a natural part of evolution which has opened up new periods of time you can use on other stuff?

https://jimssfnovelsandwargamerules.wordpress.com/

[Konstantinos Travlos]

Yeah. I do not lament it.  I probably will budget the time to play The Witcher series and Kingdom Come Deliverence, and can always play some Ultimate General, but yeah I am not seeing myself buying any new stuff beyond Darktide, and that only because we play online with my oldest friends circle

[MartinR]

I probably spend far too much time playing computer games! Those big open RPGs take a lot of time commitment, not helped as I like to do all the Quests and collect all the unique items. I think Witcher 3 took me about 200 hours. Just wading through Fallout New Vegas again, which last time was 180 hours. None of the various Jedi games take long, the longest ever was Knights of the Old Republic 2. Little and often. I find it makes a change of pace in the evenings instead of watching TV. I can only sustain painting for a few hours a week.

 

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

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