Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

While I know wargamers have the attention span of a gnat often...many of us are occasionally capable of admitting we don't have the time/space/talent to do a particular gaming project. So what are some projects you ooh and aah about - but know realistically you can't afford/manage to do reasonably?

I keep my large gaming projects to a minimum because I enjoy going 100% full tilt into a project (fully painted armies, at least two, mats, terrain, auxiliary bits, etc...all of it needs proper attention or I won't bother starting a project). On the plus side this means I view a gaming project in its entirety (including it's total potential cost) and it helps keep me from plunging into new genres...but I still daydream.

One of my many daydreams if a full Boxer Rebellion/Peking game...but the idea of building legations, painting full armies, and constructing a unique huge table for it...is just beyond me.


In a similar vein, Indian Mutiny is hugely appealing - but again would require so much work/space/time...I can't really consider it.


I'd like to do "a" black powder project of some sort...but I know it'd be a hell of a lot of boring painting, though the terrain would be far easier to manage.

The Old West for me, its such a huge project that I can't justify it, my Necromunda setting is pretty much designed to scratch that itch, lots of gunslingers and bars

Ive been staring longingly at "not epic 40k" miniatures from Vanguard for a very long time now, wanting to do a full 6x4 Imperial sector with two large Heresy armies.

After I purged all my failed projects recently (a huge relief btw) I've had to come to terms with myself with my hobby ambitions. Like you say above, its either all in on enough for 2,or I don't do it at all, saving the much needed money for existing armies. Its been a pretty satisfying approach so far, and allowed me to make a lot of progress on Battlegroup armies.

All in, I think I need about $400 to do 6mm 40k properly. Unfortunately, that's just too much money to spend on toys at the moment.

foenixphate wrote:
The Old West for me, its such a huge project that I can't justify it, my Necromunda setting is pretty much designed to scratch that itch, lots of gunslingers and bars

Do it....

This was a long-ago idea I had, circa 3rd or 4th edition.

I wanted to make a Star Wars themed Guard force. Use Chimera with Sentinel legs for an AT-AT, using the turret like the “head” of the AT-AT. Sentinels as obvious AT-ST. Storm Troopers as... Storm Troopers. An Inquisitor, in black power armour, with psychic powers, and a red “force” sword for a weapon. Working on behalf of the Emperor. Rough riders as speeder bikes.

Never went anywhere with it, but every now and again I think about it.

This was prior to the era of flyers, so no Tie Fighters.

At this stage, a 30k Dark Angels army. Seeing more and more of the gorgeous sculpts coming out I want to dive in properly, but I don't feel like it'll ever go anywhere if I did and it's a huge investment for me that could be way better spent elsewhere

Saw a huge lot of Roman miniatures on eBay (for some kind of ancient historical game system), all NIB, and thought that would be a really fun project. Then I saw the price tag and thought "Nope, not today." To be fair, it was a steal considering the sheer amount of stuff there, but I don't need a project of that magnitude and I could really use that money elsewhere.

As for other projects I won't take on, I'd say a Warlord Titan fits right in. Even if someone GAVE me one, I'd probably never get around to working on it. It's just completely beyond my skillset as a hobbyist right now and probably for the foreseeable future.

Aaaaannnd I ordered some terminators....

Sadly, I’d say ANY project for any of us is sadly gonna be on pause. I can’t see anybody spending on frivolities in the near future.

U.S. Dakota War of 1862. I would need custom tables, scenarios, and forces for both sides after doing meticulous amounts of historical research at local archives. Plus, once done, I wouldn't even have a market for the rules since it is such an obscure event.


An Operation: Compass WWII Italian force. Again, it is a period almost no one plays so I would need forces for both sides, dessert tables, and a shed load of research.

A board game based on the spread and growth of competing early Christian doctrines similar to Twilight Struggle. Of course, making the components, doing the research, and theme-ing the game with little or no return makes it a "when i am retired" it ever project.

A Call Center simulation game that I could use for business consulting and training. It would feature balancing resource versus goals across a global board. Again, creating all the components, rules, etc for a game with limited appeal and application seems pointless to me even if I would like playing it.

Finally, a good 'Modern" naval fleet scale wargame with aircraft, subs, and more. Again, nothing really exists so it would be an intensive amount of research, painting, and rules writing.

Nope, nope, nopity, nope, nope...

A huge D-Day para drop where each player has their own table. Only units in LOS would be shown on any given table. Also, I would have generic units painted black for unidentified troops.

I'd love an Ork army, but I really don't want to paint an Ork army.

10mm historical. I dream of a table filled with blocks of Napoleonic infantry, rows of pikes clashing in the English Civil War, all on well researched battlefields that closely resemble the actual terrain fought over by the opposing armies.

Of course none of my gaming friends play historical games or have any real interest in the research needed to create accurate historical armies so it would be up to me to purchase, assemble and paint both sides...

so probably not going to happen.

Full on, 300 model Gnoblar army from that old White Dwarf years ago.

I mean everything converted! Manbiters, Lucky Gits, Piggyback riders, all of it!

Would it be any good? No, Would I enjoy painting that many models? Also no. Do I still want one anyway? Hell yes!

Epic 40k / 15mm 40k. Love the idea of the massive armies you can field and the thought of the awesome urban landscapes you could battle over. However, got too much 28mm stuff and nobody else plays in weird scales. Best to leave it alone.

Also like the idea of modern small scale actions, but the terrain needs is the big no-no there.

A really heavily converted 'counts as' army using 1 faction to represent another - like the guy on here who's building goblin flying machines as a Kharadon Overlords list.

I just don't have the persistence for a long large scale project like that.

 LunarSol wrote:
I'd love an Ork army, but I really don't want to paint an Ork army.

I would also like to have an Ork army. I bought a squad of boys, converted them up for Kill Team, and painted them.

I will never paint another 40k Ork in my life. So much time, so little production. :(


Maybe the new Ghaz, just to look at.

Always wanted to do a Tyranid army using Guard miniatures.

Running Guardsmen with long daggers for Hormagaunts, crazy Sentinel conversions for Carnifexes, things like that.

An entirely converted Squat army using Kharadrons. (too expensive) i.e. more than the $1500 it would take to get everything I had in RT/2ND.

Spending any more money on GW product. -seriously i have enough stuff already and i play like 8 different game systems. there are always those times where i go-those minis look great, or i could build X army and that would be cool. i will never play AOS for example but i do love the sky dwarf minis, i also love the skhorne immortal constructs from warmachine but i will never build an army for them as i already have more than 75 points of khador. .

Full on exodite eldar force... I might do one or two models as a side project but I don't think I will ever be able to full on commit to a whole exodite army.

I have always wanted to paint up enough models to p!ay a Samurai skirmish game, like Test of Honour. But in my area, obscure games like that end up needing me to paint both sides and lend one of them to an opponent, as well as needing a table full of scenery that would be totally unlike anything I own.

^I think that's an issue with a lot of grandiose projects I think about - the need for a table or two of terrain which isn't versatile. A lot of terrain I own can be used for a variety of games. Even my Old West tables...there are a dozen fun Old West games out there. If I built a Boxer Rebellion table I figure I'd be writing my own rules...and then the terrain would see little other use (though it'd be great in a 40K styled game I suppose?).

If a project has some versatility in its components I'm definitely more enthusiastic about it.

A 40k scale Great Gargant. I collected all sorts of models kits as seconds (missing parts) from my local hobby store years ago to be used in the scratch building.

And there they still sit on the shelf in my garage. Mocking me.

I've always dreamed of some kind of collossal trench-styled table. The surface would be raised, so trenches would actually be sunk into the ground, giving cover to the inhabitants, and simulating the futility of exchanging potshots versus the despair of advancing across no-man's land. Barbed wire, tanktraps, shellholes, bunkers, the works. I'd love to make it really grimdark and bleak - my main inspiration was Hell by the Chapman Brothers. I wouldn't go quite so nightmarish, but I adore the idea of trying to actually depict the raw brutality of imperial guard casualties in the 41st milennium - for most of no-man's-land I'd really want the dead to be several bodies deep, while one end of the board would lead to labarynthine zone mortalis claustrophobia, and the other an unflinching gothic fortress, bristling with guns.

I've always thought that it might be possible to make a bunch of semi-modular tables, to run a campaign over, but I think for practicality's sake, I'll stick to more modular bits of terrain

Far too expensive, and much too much work, especially considering there are a whole slew of projects I'd rather wrap up first.

Even though I don't play 40K I really love the lore, setting and models.

Id really like to do a really gaudy 80s paint style Emperors Children Noise Marine Army. But I don't have the space and it would never see the tabletop.

for me I would love to build some big terrain tables. I am just not currently in a position with anywhere to put the terrain. or the table.

I would also love to start a full a big Space marine conversion army using stormcast and 3D printed parts and stuff.

Hopefully once I get a little more established in my career I will be able to settle down and take time to focus on projects.

I always wanted to do a full on diorama of Chaos Warriors attacking an Empire town with a full on castle and keep in the mix with Chaos fully into the town and pockets of resistance outside the keep, and the keep still being held. Alas, it'd be a lifes work, and the models aren't available.

The "Singing 69th", an infantry IG regiment that would ressemble a mix beetwen gaunt ghosts, the real "Fighting 69th" and the front illustration of the "Codex Cityfight" of old (report to my profil pic). Which would mainly use the gorgeous victoria miniatures and some valks as "armored" support.

Maybe one day...

I really want to make a marine Kill Team with zero GW models, themed as time-displaced survivors of the Auretian Technocracy, a civilization with multiple STC patterns that Horus slaughtered because he wanted their shiny toys to bribe the Mechanicum with. I dig the idea of making a counts-as Marine force with none of the barbarity or dogmatism of either the Imperium or Chaos, the last remnants of a bygone days, an age before humanity abandoned reason for madness.

Aesthetic-wise, something like a mixture of modern spec ops and Master Chief's powered armor from the Halo series tickled my fancy. The Auretians supposedly used power armor and weapons comparable to those of the Legions, but presumably derived from their own STC machines and bereft of the ritualistic aspects of 30k technology.