I have recently been looking a lot more into paper model wargaming. My main rationale are the resources of time and finances. Although in an ideal world I want a stonking great fully painted army for wargaming, what I really want to do now is play games! I enjoy modelling and painting but not to the commitment level that is required to get an army fielded as quickly and to the extent that I want too.
That for the most part has been the reason my current miniature collection consists of the skirmish style or team games. This is not for lack of desire for epic scale wargaming. Many people I speak to have the same thoughts. One of my friends actively avoids miniatures games to some degree for that exact reason even though he was heavily into Warhammer and other games in his earlier years. He now sticks to card or tiles games generally cool little ones he's found on kickstarter.
This thought stream lead me to finding the following.......
The Three Plains
Epic Wargaming - Home Page
RulesI gave the rules a quick read myself and they are very extensive and detailed. However there is a lot to digest and finding an opponent willing to put the time in for a trial game may prove difficult. I found a good full review of the rules on The Shell Case: The Three Plains Rules Review
Whats Here Lots and lots and lots of free to use paper models. A full set of free rules, extensive resources and youTube videos of battle reports.
Free Model Downloads So There are currently a total of four full armies of paper models for free download: Elves, Men, Mercenaries and Orcs There appear to be more on the way including Dwarves and Summoners. The art is good quality and the variety is huge.
Overall Simply put a large amount of work has gone into this and it deserves major props to Epic Games and the creator Dave Scholes.
My Uses So why am I talking about Kings of War? So the rules for The Three Plains are free too and as I said they appear to be detailed, in-depth and well conceived. But I return to my previous point of "what I really want to do now is play games!". Do I invest the time in learning a new rule set (Yes) but I still need to find a friend who wants to learn the rules too. I know the rules for Kings of War, it is a quick game to get in to and also has the benefit of having a current large player base/community. I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem to field a paper army at my club while I build my model base. I do want to play The Three Plains (the lore reads nicely, blue magical orc hags!!) I just need to find me an opponent. What I really want is a precident set that paper models are a serious alternative for gamers to get into a rules system.
Any way let me know your thoughts.
