And yes, fond memories are at the root of this particular project.
Now, my love for Fantasy Warriors was what got this blog started waaaaay back in the day, but unlike then I am now a man in his 40s, and I am biologically compelled to get all weepy and nostalgic for lost glory days of old and such.
In all seriousness though, the classic look of Grenadier and Ral Partha instantly transports me to a time when tabletop gaming was brand new and terrifically exciting to me, and it's both useful and rewarding to be able to access those memories 30 years hence. Although I enjoy gaming on different levels—dare I say better levels—than I did then, I do miss that sense of unbridled curiosity and fascination that came with delving into a rich and rewarding hobby, and collecting old miniatures brings back a touch of that numinous experience.
Plus the figures are just damn cool.
So after much deliberation, I've decided to part ways with my Warmachine/Hordes collection as well as my Armies of Arcana collection. This frees up four shelves in my cabinets and gives me the capital to fund the putting together of four Fantasy Warriors armies (Humans, Amazons, Goblins, and Undead, plus selected allied commands like our Dwarfy friends up there).
Getting rid of my W/H collection was an easy decision; you can read all about my frustrations with the edition change-over in my last post on the topic, but honestly WarmaHordes and I never quite gelled. It's a bit like the 4e D&D of the miniatures hobby—it does its thing very well, but pretty much every single design decision went against what I look for in my gaming experience.
And best of all, the minis are all going to My Esteemed Opponent, so I know they'll have a good home!
Selling my beloved Armies of Arcana Amazons and Undead was a harder decision, but the reasons behind purchasing them many years ago no longer even remotely apply (long story, another topic for a future post perhaps), and the money goes to a good cause. Besides, I'll still have an Amazon and Undead army, just...different.
Once I settled on this plan, my thoughts turned to how to go about collecting. My usual approach (as it is for most hobbyists) is to sit down and work up a "master list" of what I want to get, and then start putting in orders, either all at once or in stages (depending on how hard the list is going to hit the ol' pocketbook). I wanted this experience to be different.
Back in the day, my miniatures collections grew organically. I didn't have anything near the means to afford to buy even a portion of an army at once, instead collecting in dribs and drabs. This was also the days before online shopping, when I was mostly dependent on what my local game store sold. This availability forced me to build my army in ways I might not have otherwise. (I never did get that unit of halfling archers for my Empire army...)
My intention is to follow this pattern to some extent via eBay. As much as possible, I am using what's available on eBay as a guide to what units will be in my army. For example, I picked up a blister pack of two Amazon Sabertooth Cat Riders, so that means I'll have a unit of those. I can fill in the gaps with orders of recast figures from Mirliton, as well as supplemental orders from Ral Partha, Alternative Armies, and even Hasslefree (since they scale well with old-school sculpts). I also have some pre-conceived ideas of which units are "must haves" (like the Dwarven War Cannon) and which I'm going to totally avoid (I want my Undead army to be wholly infantry, for example—it just seems more "Army of Darkness"-esque that way).
Over the past two or three weeks I've been quietly purchasing figures off eBay and I just put in a big order for my first "wave" of supplementary figures from Mirliton and Alternative Armies, so I should be seeing the first proper units taking shape for my various armies soon.
At that point, I'm going to start painting. I won't be ordering any other "waves" until I have this one painted, though I'll continue to troll eBay for more seed figures for future units.
Before I go, a quick and wholly unoriginal observation. Take a look at the photo below:
I was lucky enough to find an original box of the Dwarven War Cannon still in shrink wrap for a very reasonable price. And just look at that original price tag: $8.95! That is wild.
One of the reasons I wanted this particular set so desperately is because I actually owned it back in the day. I have vivid memories of picking it up during a trip to Wargames West in Albuquerque in 1991. Even with the meager allowance I was earning as a 13 year old, clearly $8.95 was well within my means.
Plugging $8.95 in 1991 money into an inflation calculator yields a price today of $16.35. Outside of Reaper Bones, you simply could not find a model of that size and "battlefield value" for that kind of price today. It makes me wonder whether it's even possible for today's youth to get into the wargaming hobby in the same way I did.
Of course, Grenadier ended up going out of business within a few years of releasing this set, so maybe their pricing wasn't terribly realistic even for those times...
