Starting with 100 Pounds

Over at the Wargames Website, someone asked what would you do with 100 pounds to spend. Another person asked for clarification - is that starting out with 100 pounds (equivalent to about $120)? I think this makes an excellent question.

Below would be my advice for starting out. I am assuming horse & musket armies (probably my favorite), but other periods would probably not be much more.

Rules
We want rules for big battles and for skirmishes.

• "Big" battles - Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame series - this group of rules provides quick and simple battles in minimal space with small numbers of figures (as you will see below). Available from Amazon for about $10

• Skirmish - I've been having a lot of fun lately with Age of Heroes, a free set on Lead Adventure Forum. Did I mention that they are free?

Miniatures

I recommend using 10mm figures, individually based. That way they can be used for skirmishes and "big" battles. Fortunately, the Portable Wargame rules take a scaled down approach to representing units. Each infantry unit only requires 4 figures, cavalry 3, and artillery 1 gun with a couple of artillerymen.

I priced out an army of 8 units (4 infantry, 2 cavalry, and 2 artillery) at about $10 without shipping. So $20 for 2 armies.

If you are doing skirmish, you would need far fewer figures.

Terrain
You could buy professionally made terrain (I've always been enamored of Kallistra's Hexon terrain), but we want to save money. Besides, I like a simpler, homemade look. I recommend a trip to the local hobby store (or their website if you are quarantined). I checked out Hobby Lobby.

• Battlefield - a corkboard or square of felt fabric will run no more than $11
• Hills - cork tiles for $12
• Trees - green bump chenille for $2
• Rivers - blue fabric for $10 (way more than you need)
• Buildings - a few options
• if you can find it, Village in a Bag is excellent. I found a set on ebay for $10. 
• Otherwise you could make some buildings from wood blocks
• Or make paper buildings. You can find free ones at Junior General

Dice
You will only need standard six-sided dice. Scrounge some from board games.

Total
All of the above will run about $75, before shipping and tax. You will have to invest some time into painting figures and making terrain, but you should still be able to get up and running in minimal time.

And now for something completely different
If you want everything in one package, you could always buy Travel Battle