One of our new members, Bill Owen, plays traditional miniature war games. He and I have been discussing getting a mini gaming group together. We have some ideas.

I think that a good place to start would be to see how much interest there is. SO, are you interested? If so, sound off!

Does this include say mechwarrior or the various marvel mini games?

I wouldn't mind giving a minis game a shot, so much to do here at Decatur Gamers, must not spread myself thin. <glances aside.... good answer ...right honey....silence punctuated with "the look">

I am interested in miniatures games.

I own tons of 1/285th WWII terrain/buildings (from Leva Productions). I have been slowly working on 6mm armies for the Future War Commander rules as well as scenics for it.

Last year at Who's Yer Con, I demoed Flames of War and a AWI game based on a heavily modified Science VS Pluck ruleset.

This year at Gen Con I will be trying my hand at Battletech and The Uncharted Seas.

I love mini games. I used to play Warhammer 40K a couple rules revisions back, I've done my share of Battletech (but not for a long time), and I enjoy Starmada from time to time. I played Reich of the dead at Gencon last year and it was a great time.

I'm usually more of a Sci-Fi/Fantasy mini fan than historical, but I'll enjoy some Napoleonics or WWI from time to time. I up for whatever we have available.

I would not mind trying them out, BUT I am afraid if I do then I will want to buy them...then I will want to paint them...that is a slippery slope! Maybe I should just watch!

What frustrates me is my painting ability is non-existant. I look at painted minis online, then I look at mine...it makes me sad.

I started out playing the original Chainmail rules back in the 70's after playing D&D,

Progressed onto Ancient Warfare, Column Line & Square, then onto ACW, Colonials, then moved on to Warhammer in the 80's. Played some Battletech in the 90's, then went back to pretty much Warhammer and 40K.

We have a pretty large local group that plays that plus other GW games. I heard about you guys from Justin, here's our local forum;

http://paulvinton.pro...

We'd do a demo anytime folks are interested. I know Scott Ruetter used to have a bunch of old WHFB figs! That's one!

I've played and painted for years. My favorite miniature game of all time is Mordheim. I like the fact that you do not have to have 10000034526377216234576 miniatures to play it. However, I probably have that many anywway....sigh. I also like the fact that once you know the rules you can play a game in 30-60 minutes.

As I have said similarly elsewhere, my interest is in:

WWII ruleset Command Decision and have several scales of miniatures: 20mm (1:87), 6mm (1:285 microarmor) and 3mm (1:600 pico armor). My friends here and in Springfield have great collections of 6mm and 25mm (1:76) so there is no lack of troops and terrain... just have to watch when someone puts the work into setting up a game... a weakness of miniatures vs. boardgames. Long time to get enough troops painted (or purchased) for a game and setting up the terrain and scenario for a specific game.

Volley & Bayonet ...mainly for Civil War but the same ruleset covers Revolutionary War up through Franco Prussian war so about 1750-1890. I have 25mm troops but am also working on a 3mm 2/3rds scale version (brigades being 2" square and more diorama like rather than 10 giant figures representing 2000 men on a 3" square base).

Both of these rulesets where designed by Frank Chadwick and have strong support by his company www.testofbattle.com and worldwide players. I feel that they are more realistic and balanced for the effort involved than other rulesets that either too simple or excessively intricate. The problem with both extremes is that their battles often emulate comic books rather than actual history... extremely bloody for the time simulated and often hinge on excessive emphasis on imagined technology distinctions rather than command and morale elements that may be more decisive and limiting.

The upside of miniatures is that you can play a wide variety of eras, campaigns but utilize the same rules. Typically boadgames have rule concepts that are quite different from one game to the next so the easier set up is mitigated by having to learn the important distinctions especially as many rules may be the same.

A blending of boardgames and miniatures is possible insofar as a simple boardgame like House Divided can represent the whole Civil War and give context to a series of miniature battles in an ongoing campaign. The huge advantage of this is that the players have a motivation to play well and withdraw when necessary rather than have a "last turn, go nuts" syndrome that can occur otherwise. The other issue is that if one overreinforces the miniature battle by neglecting other areas in the boardgame, you can literally win the battle and lose the war! Requires balance.

unlike most of you i love the painting lol