I've been wargaming for many years. But I've often wondered just where I fit into the hobby. Am I more of a gamer or a collector? Should I describe myself primarily as a painter of figures? Or perhaps as a terrain builder? (No, despite the time I spend on it, terrain's obviously not my strong point. I can scratch that from my hobby identity list.) Perhaps, in the many different ways that I enjoy this hobby, I'm just a person indulging what Don Featherstone once called a penchant for organizing. Over the years, those small worlds (scaled 20mm and 15mm, in my case) that are carefully stored in all those boxes in the garage have been cajoled into some form of imperfect order by my efforts. Actually, I've organized those imaginary worlds to a degree that would make a control freak envious. Which is more than I can say about the real world I inhabit, which remains disorderly despite my best intentions and most earnest efforts. Wondering about my place in the hobby isn't the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night. I must admit though, those last moments before I nod off are often filled with thoughts of orders of battle or of a new gaming period that's recently caught my imagination. This hobby can consume me. Yet one thing is certain. In my own world of wargaming, gaming itself plays a limited role. I've spent most of the last two years on a painting binge. My ACW collection was mostly complete, but my ancients needed work. It was only lately that I finally resolved the scale dilemma for the period. Somehow, I'd wound up with a mismatched bunch of HO and small 25s. I played them together when I set up a rare game but I never was happy with the size difference. After much thought and the realization that there were now good supplies of metal HO-sized figures in the period, I chose to concentrate on the 20s. I packed the 25s away and reorganized what was left, buying bunches of figures to provide all the types I wanted to be able to put on the gaming table in the proper scale. That brought a lot of unpainted lead (OK, pewter) into the house and I had to do a bunch of painting to catch up. That's how my two-year project got started. Along the way, I even found some nice plastics in the scale. I've never minded mixing plastics and lead, even on the same base. Variety's a good thing. But the extra boxes of plastics meant even more painting. Well, that project is mostly done now too. I'd never say I'm "finished" with anything in this hobby. There's always another unit I might want to add. I'm happy just to get things to this stage. It feels like the end of something to me. That kind of thinking has led me back to my Civil War stuff. I've fallen under the influence of the Piquet set of rules and I've been basing my armies in a way that lends itself to my own interpretation of those rules. I'm not a straight PK player, but I use some of the most interesting ideas (initiative rolls, card-based movement and combat) as part of the strictly personal set of rules I've developed over the years. Lately, I've been rebasing my Civil War units, moving away from the small Fire and Fury-type basing system that I stuck with for years to bigger stands, generally brigade-sized, ala Volley and Bayonet. With 7-9 figures crammed on one stand, I think I'm approaching the ideal of "mini-dioramas" others have mentioned for their basing. As the painting of my ancients wound down, I was getting more and more involved in the Civil War rebasing project. Naturally, I've discovered that I need a few more figures here and there, which means I'm back to painting ACW troops again, after a layoff of several years. But a gamer does what a gamer's got to do. I like the new look of the Civil War troops, just like I like the final look of my ancients, heavy troops lined up in double rows, light troops more spread out. It's amazing how many figures you can cram onto a limited-size base if you really want to. With all this painting, organizing and reorganizing reaching some sort of end point, I've decided that I'll take a break. The year of 2002 is going to be my gaming year. The troops are how I want them. My rules are ready. I'm still working out the fine points of randomizing terrain selection but I can finish that off quickly enough. This year, I'm going to be a genuine solo gamer -- at least for a while. The point is (I hoped there'd be one when I got to the end), all this painting, reorganizing, sifting through rules for ideas has finally allowed me to figure out just where I fit into this odd and fascinating hobby. I'm still not sure I want to admit this publicly but what the heck? After all these years of doing everything but gaming with the little guys, I've now reached the point of making a New Year's resolution to finally get them on the table more. We'll see how I follow through on that resolution. But the one consistent thing I've done and will continue to in this hobby has suddenly hit me. I'm not mainly a gamer. Or a collector. I'm not even that much of a painter anymore. But there's been one constant all these years that I've only just realized. With all my dabbling in this rules set or that, I've done one thing consistently: rebasing those figures to match the latest idea fixation. And that, fellow gamers, is where I've decided I stand in this hobby. I'm a rebaser. Any others out there who find this is the thing that defines them in this hobby? I expect there are more of us than we'd care to admit. Cheers for now. I've still got some rebasing work to do before I can start that first game. Back to Table of Contents -- Lone Warrior #138 Back to Lone Warrior List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2002 by Solo Wargamers Association. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com