If you were IMMENSELY rich and had unlimited funds to spend on gaming…

[Elliesdad]

OK, so you've won a gazillion pounds/euros/ dollars on the lottery - or you are a Saudi Prince - and you have (effectively) unlimited funds to spend on your gaming/hobby projects - what would you do?

Huge house with purpose built games room and likewise a purpose built library, for books, magazines, comics etc.
Top designers to design and produce whatever range of figures you feel like. And top painters to paint and base 'em.

The other alternative could be that you have soooooo much money you spend it on "other" projects - fast women, fast cars etc - that you are far too occupied with these other things that you're too busy for wargaming and toy soldiers. That is a potential nightmare...

Geoff

[Norm]

Easy,  not in any particular order,

Buy a mansion. have a kitchen, a loo, bedroom and living room, all other rooms would be themed to period / genre, so I would have a napoleonic French / Austrian room and a French / Russian one, a naval room, a WWII 10mm room and a WWII 1/72 room etc, each with one or more dedicated tables - it would be just 1 table per room if I only had a small mansion!

Next, I would never paint a figure again and would have every army I wanted, plus a few I didn't.

Next i would buy one of the vacated department stores in my nearest town and turn it into a wargamers paradise, it would have traders, game tables and every month, the equivalent of game show would be held. Every customer who came in through the door would be given £10 to spend.

Finally, if I had any money left over, once a month in the grounds of my mansion, I would run a wargame at 1:1 with a cast of real people all dressed up in costume

[Ithoriel]

I'd make the National Trust an offer they couldn't refuse to buy Cragside.

Billiard Room becomes figure storage, painting area, PC(s) and 3D printer(s) area, laser cutter area and photography booth.

Drawing room gets as many of these (or similar) as can comfortably fit.



Plenty of room for "visiting firemen" to stay over for extended games.

As to the alternative option to spend the money ... I've never been into cars, fast or otherwise, nor fast women either. As my grandfather once said,"I'm too old to chase women, too old to catch them and too old to know what to do with them if I did!"

[FierceKitty]

1) Establish a wargamers-only scholarship to benefit the gaming elite and improve the quality of postings on websites. Fantasy gamers and those who think seven figures a side count as a Japanese army will not be considered; likewise any who don't know a Roman scutum was usually oval, that Vietnam hasn't just been a swamp to give bad US movies a setting, or that the SYW actually involved very intelligent tactics.

2) Hire a team of enforcers to explain to rules lawyers that their day is past.

3) Have a set of dice constructed that don't reliably roll a 1 when I've carefully set things up so that 2-6 would win a critical melee.

4)  Sponsor a few armies and troop types unaccountably missing from 10mm ranges - T'ang, Tibetan, Abyssinian, Ming, Inca, Tlaxcalan, ancient Hebrew; thureophoroi, Sherden guardsmen.

5)  Buy a time machine and go stir up wars that should have happened so I can game them - Alexander's campaign against Carthage; Chandragupta's invasion of China; an Inca-Mexican conflict.

[Heedless Horseman]

LOL!  Big House... Castle may be accepted. Large staff recruited from... (You've guessed it!)... attractive 'Ladies' who have SUDDENLY had an urge to paint and play with 'toy soldiers'...
...and a Tank... various types  considered... in which to 'button up' and escape from the above... for a while!  LOL!

Oh Well. Perhaps all I could wish for would be longevity, dexterity, eyesight...

... AND the above! 

Or, on a less narcissistic view... a converted aircraft carrier... (Maybe a couple 'up for offers' soon... )... fitted out for conventions... and capable of cruises... 

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

I have no idea...

[Steve J]

Hmmm, I've always fancied my own farm where I could grow all the food and raise all the animals I needed. A converted barn as a games room sounds nice, but I'm rather taken with Norm's idea of themed games rooms. I'd certainly have my own study, ideally in a turreted tower with views across my 'estate'.

Until then I'll have to make do with the view from the lounge window and borrow said lounge for my gaming. Hey ho.

[Leman]

I do like the sound of that nightmare.

[Techno II]

Ask Leon what he wanted for a 40% share in  Pendraken......I'd not remotely want to make any company decisions......Leon does far too good a job already !

Cheers - Phil.

[FierceKitty]

Buy Phil remote-control micro-manipulator sculpting hands with no edged, pointy, crushing, abrasive, corrosive, superheated, cryonic, electrically-charged, radioactive, or poisonous bits at the user interface, then sit back and watch him find a way around the safety features anyway.

[Techno II]

 

Cheers - Phil.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Buy Phil remote-control micro-manipulator sculpting hands with no edged, pointy, crushing, abrasive, corrosive, superheated, cryonic, electrically-charged, radioactive, or poisonous bits at the user interface, then sit back and watch him find a way around the safety features anyway.

But think of the pharmacutical companies that would put out of bussiness 

[steve_holmes_11]

The big house:
I see a couple of immediate possibilities here.

A bunch of "executive" homes recently built a couple of miles away.
Each has 5 bedrooms, and a triple garage with big room, toilet and kitchenette on top.
The garage block would become the hobby centre.
* Fitness stuff in one garage.
* DIY / Building stuff in another.
* Games stuff and a big table upstairs.

The main house has capacity for a small contingent to stay over.


However, for a little more there are big country houses that regularly pop up in the market.
These usually incorporate extensive grounds, stables, carriage house, a billiard room (with room for the big table), a few other big rooms and a host of bedrooms.
One of these could become a gaming Mecca to impress even the lads at Little Wars TV.

The extensive grounds mean space to build and test Trebeuchets without disturbing the neighbours.


The Armies:

Looks forlornly at the existing pile of unpainted metal.

First thing: Spread the lead pile out in the big gaming room, decide what to keep and what would be better served with other gamers.

Next focus on a few main groups of armies and rules.
Enlist some help to get them all painted and based.
I enjoy the painting side of the hobby, but am not sufficiently productive to get all the armies in place at once.

Decide whether I'd like to go "Grande Manner" with any of my collections.
You know the sort of drill.
Keep the same armies, but with bigger panoramic bases.
I've never really enjoyed the mega game where one pushes hundreds of bases about, but I've often felt that 3 15mm Celts on a 40x20mm base is a poor representation of a warband.

Finally, decide whether I'd like to try anything new.
Both Crossfire and Chain of Command appeal, but require investment in a new range of WW2 terrain and scenery.


Transport

Something more appropriate for a billionaire, but with plenty of space to transport armies and terrain.
None of this Lamborghini with a boot the size of a handbag nonsense.

[Westmarcher]

So megalomania appears to be the order of the day, giant retractable tables like Goldfinger's scale model of Fort Knox, which disturbingly for Leon probably involves larger scale figures by the gazillion and abandonment of Norm's 'wargaming in small spaces' ethos, offering stupid levels of money to professional painters and sculptors to get what you want, having scantily clad young ladies pushing your toy soldiers around the table like a WW2 RAF Battle of Britain operations room ....

OK. I'll give it a try.

.... but only once ..... perhaps twice .....

[Nirnman]

Having bought any of the recent posts re-accommodations for wargaming. I would then sponsor the research and development into producing a"General Jumbo's2 army I'm 10 mmjustcos i could and always envied the comic strip character