Oh, how to set up a good wargaming table on a tight budget...
Lots of people who want to play Fear of the Dark or Frontline Heroes tell me the game requires different terrain, and that's actually true, since you need to represent different scenarios (an isolated 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 more cheaply.
Often, when I say I play solo, most people think I must have spent a huge amount of money on miniatures and terrain. As a solo player you have to buy everything yourself and store it at home.
The miniatures wargaming hobby has always been seen as an expensive hobby only within reach of gaming clubs or people who can spend that amount of money by themselves.
We're used to seeing huge tables covered with massive armies of fully painted miniatures, with lots of resin scenery, forests of trees, rivers, mountains and many terrain pieces.
A bit terrifying, isn't it?
And even more terrifying when it comes to solo play, in that case all the expenses are made by one single person...
Well, in this article I'll try to explain that it's not so expensive to make a gaming table 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 build a large army, then there's an unbeatable range in terms of price: the 20mm or 1/72 scale, which has a large number of different historical periods, ranks, units and whatever you're looking for, generally in plastic and always at more than affordable prices.
On the other hand, 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 or Frontline Heroes you'll use between 5 and 14 miniatures per side, making it affordable in terms of figures.
As for gaming tables, we see all kinds: 3D modular wooden boards, custom-made, professional neoprene printed mats... but one of the simplest solutions is a green felt mat costing approximately €3 (and it's no joke) that can be bought at any fabric store...
If we talk about terrain, there's everything: we can find terrain made of resin, plastic, 3D printed (PLA or resin)... with different prices according to quality or piece size.
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 on paper or cardstock and make them ourselves with very good results.
Nice gaming table, right? Well... All the buildings and even the roads are papercraft, and cost less than €10...
In this LINK you'll find tons of tips and tricks for starting papercraft from scratch, plus a heap of links to free or super-cheap buildings ans terrain.
We also have many terrain pieces at quite reduced prices from Asian distributors, whether physical stores or online (AliExpress).
Trees, cars, palm trees, trucks, bushes, streetlights, planes, shrubs... there's a vast world of terrain we can pick up for very little money.
in this LINK you'll find a handful of low-priced items for your gaming tables
The last and perhaps most important terrain pieces are handmade ones, made from any material we can imagine (cardboard, EVA foam, wood, coffee stirrers, cardboard...) and here the limit is our imagination and skill.
The internet is full of tutorials with different difficulty levels to make almost any possible terrain piece.
And with these guidelines we can set up a gaming table without spending much money, which is quite important if we intend to play solo without requesting a bank loan.
And to wrap things up and leave a clear example, we’re going to set up a wargaming board, explaining where every item comes from and how much it cost, so it’s obvious you can play on a table that looks the part without spending a fortune.
Let's see the cost of this 3x3 ft (90x90 cms) wargaming table:
the felt mat €2.5 (1x1 meter)
Cardboard printed houses €6
Trees €4
Road €2 (cork board)
Fences €8
Walls (ordered from 3D printer) €5
Various pieces (boxes, barrels...) €8
€35 for a quite nice 3x3 ft (90x90 cms) wargaming table...
As you can see, it's not difficult or expensive to get started in this hobby, or at least it's as expensive as we want it to be.
And from here I encourage you to start playing wargames, setting up your own low-cost gaming table, starting with the basics: gaming mat and trees, then you make some paths or roads, a river (even if it's a short section), with a river you have an excuse for a bridge, houses are really cheap and quick to make and look wonderful on a table...
And step by step, little by little, when you realize it, you'll have terrain to fill several tables with even different scenarios...
