Sunday 11 December 2011

Playing with paper figures

Though I generally make my own figures for wargaming or rpgs, I also use figures made by other peoples. After all, if I can save time from figures making, that's more time for planning games or playing.

Here are two interesting products I have been using and which I would recommend to you.

First are Okum Arts Games products that I found on RPGnow.
David Okum is a very talented artist and he has a growing range of paper figures that you can use in your game: vikings, fantasy, western, retrospace, samurais, and even ... undead Santa Claus.
As you can see, what is most interesting, is that David does other periods than fantasy (for which you can use One Monk figures that you surely already knows, Jim is still the best and has a really great range).



In the past, I have made some experiments with cardboard figures that would represent several figures (you can check my Napoleonic figures if you want to see what I mean). But I have always stuck to the number of sodiers depicted on the multifigure representing the same number of figures used in the rules for that base size.

Billy Bones took the idea further, with multiples figures representing a full unit view. This gives the impression of really massive formations when looking at the figures.

I thought, at first, to use those kind of figures only with unit-based rules, but they can surely also be used with figures-based rules. After all, the size of the base gives you the number of "figures" you have to use for calculating melees, firefights,.... I'll have to experiment with the concept.

Paper Battle from Billy Bones workshop


A wonderful idea that seems simple... once you have seen it applied by someone else. I'll probably have a try at this kind of figures.

And, by the way, I discovered that Billy Bones was already making some very good tents I had already bought.


And I am really tempted by his fort...

2 comments:

  1. Hi,

    Before getting here, I discovered your old web and I love it! Each one of the minis is great!

    In order to use your 15mm in wargames, I am going to use the napoleonic ones to test the Lasalle Rulebook. The basing for infantry are two rows of 4 figures in a base, cavalry 3 units in one base, and the artillery depends if it is mounted or not.

    I adapted yours to a 5 figures in a row to look more massive:

    http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/1509/sinnombrepd.jpg

    The photo is not the final work (missing flags, some bases, and cleaning the "white fog" of the superglue.

    Thanks for sharing your work.

    Kind regards,

    Fran

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  2. Indeed, "en masse" on your picture, they make a good army display.
    That's one reason I think that figures intended to use in armies (as opposed to skirmish) shouldn't be too detailled. It gives a better "army size" look when they are multiplied.

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