Hello, My Name is Ferb & I'm a Wargameaholic.

I started the new year with the best of intentions. I wasn't going to buy any new systems to play. I'd found the previous year that I didn't get to play the systems I already had often enough and this made remembering the rules difficult.

I was only playing once a week with the occasional extra game. So I'd decided to stick with Impetus for ancients in 15 & 28mm, Malifaux for skirmish gaming, Gruntz for 15mm SciFi fun & Saga for skirmish gaming as it had become popular at the club. I also had FoW & 40K, but I'd gone off 40K and no one at the club seemed to play FoW any more.

These good intentions didn't last long. I started the year with a few games of Impetus then hit a wall as I couldn't find anyone to play my chosen systems who didn't already have games arranged. ( we tend to book up games a couple of weeks in advance). So I looked around and decided to add Infinity to the list. I had a look at the game and it seemed interesting plus there seemed to be a few people playing it so I bought a Combined Army starter set and painted it up. In the meantime I'd managed to book up a few games of Saga to keep me going.

The starter set I bought.


While this was happening the Battletech 25th Anniverary box set came back into the shops. I'd always loved the Battletech universe and had wanted this set for ages plus I could also use the mechs for Gruntz. So I bought my second extra system for the year. But that's not all! January saw lots of sales at various retailers and I noticed that Triple Helix Wargames were selling the Warmachine 2-Player Battlebox at 20% off so I ordered a set. I justified this by telling myself there were lots of Warmachine players at the club so I could get games. Plus it was such a good deal I could sell one set of figures and have a 20pt force plus rules for about £20-£30. My mind conveniently left out that I'd tried Hordes with Trollbloods last year and hated it. I'd even sold all my figures, rules, cards etc on eBay. But hey Warmachine will be different right.

So end of January and I've already bought three new systems and not managed a game with any of them. February would be different though, I had enough systems to ensure finding a game each week so no need to buy any more.

Except that I'd been reading about the Lasalle rules on various blogs. Now I love historical wargaming and I used to have loads of Napoleonic stuff and was a bit of an expert on Waterloo (sadly mostly forgotten now). So, since they sounded fun, I decided to buy the rules and as they were only about a tenner as a downloadable pdf it wasn't a big expenditure. Although if I wanted a game I would need to buy and paint some figures plus I would need to buy two armies so I would have an army for my opponent to use. I decided to go with Pendraken 10mm figures as I could buy an army for about £30 plus they should be quick to paint. So I bought £10 of figures & bases to get started. Extra system number four! Then version 3 of the FoW rules came out.




Lasalle rules from Sam Mustafa


For March I told myself I wasn't going to spend anything on wargaming for the whole month. But that lasted about two weeks. I'd got fed up with Saga and decided it wasn't for me and sold my figures and rules. So at least some money was coming in for a change. I also got my first FoW game for nearly a year and enjoyed it a lot. This led me to spend time on various FoW blogs and I saw a post saying a good way to learn the rules was to use a tank only force. So I bought access to EasyArmy.com found a 'cheap' force and bought two boxes of PSC Panthers. Of course it didn't stop there. I added Nebelwerfers and PaK40's to the list to get to 1750pts. Then I signed up for an El-Alamein campaign so I've started buying forces for that.

Then the Maurice rules and cards came out and they intrigued me so I bought them and started looking at 10mm figures for armies. For some reason I forget I also got interested in Dystopian Wars, mentioning them in the blog got me a good offer on a Blazing Sun fleet from Ben so I took him up on it.

Now I'm looking at Kerr & King terrain sets, new gaming table felt cloths for sea and desert use and out of the blue I started looking at ACW with the Fire & Fury rules. At least I've managed to hold off buying any of this for now.

Kerr & King Large Adobe building

So far this year I've managed
8 games of Basic Impetus
7 games of Saga
1 game of Battletech
1 game of Gruntz
4 games of FoW
2 games of Warmachine
3 games of Malifaux

So of the five new systems I've added I've only played with two of them. This also doesn't include 28mm plastic Saxons, Vikings, Normans and Romans that I bought before christmas and hardly started painting or the 28mm plastic ECW army which is still in the unopened box

So there you have it, I'm a hopeless addict with no self-control. To try and rein in my spending I've decided to add everything I buy and sell to a spreadsheet in the hope it will frighten me into some restraint. In case you're interested my spending so far since I started recording it on 23rd March is £35.41.

Hopefully this will be a warning to anyone thinking that they might like to try wargaming. If anyone offers you a box of Space Marines cheap JUST SAY NO!