How did I get into miniatures?

That's the question that popped into my head the other day. I thought I'd take some time to think about what has influenced me enough that I would develop a such a draw toward miniatures.

Like most North American kids, I had Hot Wheels/Matchbox cars. But I don't think they really count. Sure they happen to be miniature models, but playing with them doesn't seem to increase the likelihood that a child is going to get into minis. In addition, there isn't really a sense of structure in most kid's experiences of "playing cars".

I think my earliest experience playing a structured game with minis was an overnight stay at a cousin's house when I was somewhere around 10 years old.

This particular cousin had a modest collection of medieval fantasy miniatures. The impression has stuck with me that he was into Dungeons & Dragons at the time, though he may have just liked painting minis, I don't know. I remember that he put together a simple skirmish - styled game and we played three or four teams: he, me, and one (or both) of our brothers. Don't remember much else except we rolled a kind of die I had never seen before (a d20) and that my favourite piece was a soldier in chain-mail and a white tunic (crusader-style).

That game definitely had an impact on me. However, I don't think it was the game itself, which was very simple, that was most striking to me, but the fact that we used little figures to play it. Thereafter, my siblings and I would set up similar games using Lego or plastic soldiers on a checker board. What's kind of funny is that it never even crossed my mind to find out where/how to get myself some little pewter men.

Fast-forward a few years to the advent of Micro Machines. Man were those cool! They started cranking out models of Star Wars and Trek ships as well as an original line-up of space-battle- or futuristic-battle-themed models. We thought they were some of the greatest things ever, but we didn't end up getting very many - $8-$9 for three very small toys always seemed like too much. I still balk at the prices I see for miniatures.

But we would set up Imperials and Rebels on opposite sides of our big rug in the living room and flick marbles at each others ships. This was merely an extension of something we were already doing with plastic army guys and dominoes. Sometimes we would play Galaga-style: one ship vs. all the dominoes and the ship gets three hits. We did the same with WWII airplanes.

Then we moved while I was in high school. A lot of things changed at that time. Actually a bit before that. We got a Super Nintendo for Christmas and Chuck Yeager's Air Combat for the computer. A large portion of our play/gaming shifted into those machines.

Fast forward again to about five years ago. I've snapped out of my "I'm in college and too busy for gaming" mindset, I'm losing much of my interest in video games and my wife and I are starting into board games and I'm wanting to get back to carving like I did when I was younger. I just need a subject. An expansion comes out for Ticket to Ride featuring a rather large lizard and an alien in a spaceship. I wanted to try that expansion, but I didn't want to spend $25 to do so. Voila! I had a carving subject! And that's where my home-made miniature-making started. That's right, I have not been making miniatures for long.

It has now been four years, I think, since those TtR minis. My previous posts cover the period between then and now, so I can bring this post to an end.

Getting a game in edgewise...

Sunday the family was invited to a games night at a friend's house. Just before we headed out to the party, I had gathered a couple of our own games in case anyone wanted to play. At the last moment, I just decided to take a kids' game as well, just in case. I dropped Snail's Pace Race into the bag.

They had invited a few couples to get together. There was lots of food and chatting and general good times being had. But after almost two hours, no sign of games.

It's fine, really. I know I was was least social person in that party and I get tired of talking pretty quickly. However, everyone else seemed to be having a good time and I didn't want to spoil it, so I found a deck of cards and set up Beleaguered Castle* for myself. At about the point that I realized I had no further moves, our host's 4 year-old son came over to see what I was doing. He proceeded to grab up piles of cards to show me something he could do, which I'm pretty sure from what he was saying that he was talking about doing a bridge shuffle. He didn't actually perform one, but he could sure tell me all about it.


 By the time we had finished picking up the cards, my 5 year-old, Jeanette, was standing by me as well. I asked if they wanted to play a game. Yes! I would get a play in that night, didn't matter what! So I pulled out Snail's Pace Race, told our host's son how to play and the three of us were off to the races!

It was a hit! As we finished our first game, he asked if we could play again. Same after the second play. Unfortunately for him, it was time for us to go home (it was after 9:00 and Jeanette had school the next day). In our two games, the red snail was the snail to put your money on. The way the game is supposed to be played (though I haven't introduced this rule to the kids) is that the players "wager" on a snail. You win if you bet on the snail that comes in first, which was green snail the first game and orange snail the second game. You also win if the snail you bet on comes in last; the red snail was the slowest of the slow in both of our races!

So there's my story of inspiration. I am very glad I listened to that inner voice and grabbed a game for kids.

* I have recently learned that I play a variation of Beleaguered Castle which has added rules to make it easier to win. I do still do not find it easy to win, I maybe complete 1 in 20 games.