My Lazy Gamer Approach

Earlier this year I posted a series called the Lazy Gamer's Guide wherein I shared ideas on making miniatures gaming simpler for those who want to focus on the game without having to do a lot of work. (Ironically, I don't think I ever finished the Guide). Anyway, I want to give an update on my Lazy Gamer Approach.

The Battlefields
I previously discussed the Three S's of the Lazy Gamer Approach - Small, Simple, and Short. My battlefields encompass the first 2 principles

• Small - I use a board that is 8 inches by 10 inches. I can easily fit it on my coffee table, with room to spare for rules, dice, etc.
• Simple - My battlefield has simplified my life in 2 ways:
• The battlefield is gridded, which makes movement much easier
• I can draw on the battlefield with dry-erase markers. I just draw on the terrain instead of using terrain bits. It may not look as nice but it is much simpler to set up and easier to store

The Armies

Although I experimented with block armies I have recently settled on 3mm miniatures instead. 

Nevertheless, I still abide by the Three S's.

• Small 
• 3mm miniatures are definitely small so they fit well into the 1" grid squares. Yet they are large enough to distinguish troop types with ease.
• I reduced the number of periods by creating generic armies that could represent ancient through horse & musket troops. With 3mm, you can't tell exactly what weapon they carry. I figure that massed infantry could therefore represent either spearmen or musketeers. Similarly, light infantry could be carrying bows or rifles. This means that 2 armies can represent combatants across a span of 3,000 or more years (especially when I set the battles in my imaginary worlds; I don't have to worry about the correct uniforms that way).
• Simple
• I don't spend a lot of time painting my minis. At photo distance, I can't see the details anyway. The above red and blue armies only have 3 colors (their coat/uniform color, their helmets of silver or gold, and brown for the base). My evil armies are even simpler - all black.

The Rules

I am still experimenting with different home brew rules sets. Again, I abide by the Three S's, specifically:

• Simple - I prefer fast play rules in the vein of The Portable Wargame
• Short - My rules should be short in two ways:
• When I try commercial rules, they should have a short page count. I am not going to wade through a couple hundred pages of rules to play a game.
• The games themselves should be short (I shoot for about half an hour of game time). This gives me plenty of time to set up, play the game, put it away, and blog about it.