What innovation has changed your wargaming life?

[fsn]

My Pendraken mojo is going full blast. I've just finished my 1941 Russians (phase 1) and am sorting through the Italians. In the interim, I'm moving continents to a 1959/60 four way Anglo-French-American backed government-Soviet backed insurgent somewhere in the Middle East game - WITH CENTURIONS.

It struck me, as I dug out another mini superglue tube, that over the past 2 years (yes, it's only been two years) that my wargaming experience has changed so much, and I don't mean just the move to 10mm. In the last 2 years, I have:

• moved to acrylics
• started using "proper" bases
• flocking
• I've even experimented with static grasses
• bought an optivisor
• added the baking powder trick to my repertoire
• started using movement bases
  
  

The biggest change for me though is having this forum as a social and informative point of contact.

So how have you changed in the past few years? What innovation has changed your life?

[FierceKitty]

A while ago, but the internet and credit card. Used to seek advertisements in badly-written magazines, and pay by expensive bank drafts.

[Luddite]

1.  The discovery of washes.

2.  The internet - in terms of access to product and access to community.

3.  Joining a club - access to communal resources i'd not otherwise have, access to tables, access to other players to play against.

4.  Breaking free of GW early on - realising that i don't have to game 'the approved way'.

5.  Being a gaming butterfly - playing lots of periods and lots of different games.  It helps you figure out what you truely enjoy.

6.  Marrying a gamer / geek - you play together you stay together.

[Ithoriel]

Separation and retirement

[Techno]

Joining the forum.

(I wasn't going to, as so many others I've looked at can get  more than unpleasant.)
Cheers - Phil

[fsn]

I'm with you Techno.

The forum is a lifeline in such desolate wastelands as the back end of Wales ... and Runcorn.

[cbr3d.com]

For me, and not in any particular order, the following:

- Using an Optivisor
- Finding that Leon of Pendragen really is as helpful and open as stated so often on this forum
- This forum (unlike any other forum I know of) where members take for granted that part of the hobby is the fun of ribbing one another and new members are automatically made welcome as if they have been around for yonks
- Dedicated shed for grinding bases, any messy work
- Dedicated work room (well half a room) where everything can be left overnight without having to pack things away and continually moving things around
- My wife bringing in ideas we can use from her 'crafting' hobby

I guess there is still the one thing that I am really looking forward to obtaining, a good quality 3D.  

[Steve J]

The internet and all that it has opened up for us in the wargaming hobby. Looking back I joined this forum in March 2010 and since then the changes have been remarkable, so in no particular order:

- Forums such as this.
- Easy online ordering via PayPal.
- Most wargames companies now having good websites.
- The absolute ease of organising a game without repeated 'phone calls.
- Washes.
- The move from a variety of scales to 1/144th (10mm).
- Good Blogs to follow and be inspired by.

The only downside I would say is that:

- It is so, so easy getting distracted by a totally new period.
- Some manufacturers/retailers no longer attending shows, probably due to costs versus online retailing. QRF a recent example.

[toxicpixie]

Good forums/internet research/manufacturer websites/PayPal - basically, the internet... For product, painting and paying!

Joining the club for getting a game in more than once a quarter, but the internet/email for keeping us all in touch for my "once a quarter" ex-Uni cabal

A dedicated work bench/desk where I can leave things to hand as I work on them (well, my computer/work office space all in one ).

[Leman]

Discovering at 13 that I didn't have to give up playing soldiers.

[Hertsblue]

Biggest revolution so far - acrylic paints. Enamels were a nightmare, so I went to artists' gouache. Much pleasanter, easy to use, but with some strange quirks and very fragile until properly varnished. Then acrylics - very easy to use, persistant and non-toxic. If they have a drawback it's that they're just a little too fast-drying - but I'll live with that.  

[barbarian]

- 10mm and multibasing.
- historical games
- A dedicated 20 m square room
- Sculpting

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Erm...
How recent is the innovation meant to be?
For me, kickstarters, serious artists acrylics, Naval Thunder rules, erm...


Oh yeah:
The 1870s! 
Feeling better now.

[toxicpixie]

Actually, yes - first major revolution was acrylic paint over enamels that was probably about 1986 and maybe a year into painting models so a loooong time back

Spray undercoat & varnish as well!

[jambo1]

Acrylics over enamels, proper bases as opposed to corn flake packets, but for me the internet for buying and forums like this for all the great ideas, great advice and all round nice people that inhabit it

[petercooman]

For me it was getting paypal, i was very limited in buying stuff before that. I depended on local shops and ebay, only being able to buy via bank transfers.

Not long after i got aypal, i discovered pendraken, and the rest is history!!

[fsn]

Good spot. Paypal has made buying thins SOOOO much easier!

[petercooman]

Good spot. Paypal has made buying thins SOOOO much easier!

And not buying things SOOOOOO much harder, for that matter 

[Poggle]

1. The Internet - not only for all those shiny, shiny figures in ads, but for the international community spirit it fosters.
2. Acrylic paints instead of smelly enamels
3. Reading glasses!
4. Washes

[Subedai]

In the last two years...hmmm.

Pendraken Forum. Without it I'd still be in 10mm limbo. (The Mongol chaps are quite nice as well).

The Magic Wash method.

Using double sided tape for sticking down lines of figures to paint. Honestly, I've been wargaming since Noah was a lad and only just discovered that one.

My man cave/study/painting area/wargames room in the cellar. Small but perfectly formed for a 6 x 4 table.