Where to start?

Well, only time will tell if my current fascination with 15mm minis will last, so I guess I'd best start by laying out what I currently have planned, by way of how I came to be here.

I've been involved in gaming now for just over 20 years, after being captivated as a young 'un by the television advert for Heroquest. That was the catalyst for what has turned into, what is best described by the other half as, an obsession.

Over the years I've played a variety of games, covering a variety of periods, in a variety of scales. Mostly it was 28mm stuff, but I was always partial to some Warmaster (10mm) and had a huge amount of Space Marine (6mm), or Epic Warhammer 40,000 as the youth of today will know it.

More recently, two things stand out as prompting my interest in smaller scale models, namely Mantic Games Kings of War rules, and picking up a copy of Battle Lore. The Kings of War rules, despite being intended for 28mm minis, deal with complete unit removal rather than individual casualties, like Warhammer, which made me consider dioramic unit bases, rather than individually based models, especially if I was only going to be using them under that system. The Mantic tagline advocates Big Battles, Big Armies, and I was quite taken by the irony that, the smaller the models, the bigger the army, in scale, rather than stature.

The second thing, Battle Lore, was probably due to the fact that it was a full stand alone game in a box, and I really enjoy how it plays. Of course, the modeller in me wanted to do a bit more, add some creative flair, so I started looking around at how to customise the set. I'll pin the blame on Boromir and Kermit, as reading his blog turned me over to Splintered Light Minis, and many hours were spent going over the online store. Of course, since then, I've done a lot of research into different 15mm manufacturers, and created a disgustingly large wishlist of minis I want to add to the collection.

Really, between the two, I came to the conclusion that, smaller models means I can get more of them onto the table (and therefore in the house) and I've even contemplated trying to write up my own d10 based multibased fantasy ruleset.

Currently, my plans consist of painting up the contents of the Battle Lore box, plus the expansions I already have, and picking up the remaining expansions. I also have a large Flames of War force (Hitlerjugend Panzer Kompanie) sitting in the boxes and blisters, so that will need some love, as well as a couple of Splintered Light Minis boxes (Gnomes and Cave Trolls) for Mighty Armies, and a bunch of Copplestone Castings Barbarians.

Those will be the subject of my next post.