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The Complete Guide to Miniature Wargaming
The honest, budget-aware, plain-English guide to what miniature wargaming really costs, what it demands of your time and space, and exactly how to start this week
by Alumigogo Books
Chapter 1: What Is Miniature Wargaming and Why People Love It
Let's clear something up right away: miniature wargaming is not one hobby. It's four hobbies that happen to share a box of tiny plastic soldiers. If you understand that from the start, you'll have a much better time, because you'll know which of the four you actually enjoy - and it's completely fine to love two of them and ignore the other two.
The four are: collecting (buying and organizing the models), building (assembling them from sprues, which are the plastic frames they come on), painting (the part you've probably seen on YouTube), and playing (the actual tabletop game). Most people who do this hobby for years started for the gaming and ended up spending 80% of their time painting. Others started for the painting and discovered they love the tactical side. A few get hooked purely on the collecting and building. All of these are valid, and the guide you're holding is built around that reality.
So what does it actually look like on a Tuesday night? Let's walk through a real example.
You decide you want to play a game called Warhammer Age of Sigmar, which is one of the most popular games in the hobby. You buy a "starter set" - a box that contains a small force of two armies, some dice, a measuring ruler, and a rulebook. This costs around $150 to $200. You open the box and find, instead of ready-to-paint miniatures, a