Oh, to have a TARDIS. It’d be awesome to have access to infinite space and time, and it seems like money is never an object when you have a TARDIS at your disposal. Of course, being me, I’d probably find a way to work it into my hobbies. What games would I play if I had space, time, and money were not a concern? I can think of a few. Here, in no particular order, are five such games…
1. Warhammer Fantasy Battles
I already have the start of a WHFB army – High Elves – but apart from the models from Island of Blood, I don’t have anything assembled, and I’m hemming and hawing on whether I want to keep it or not. I’ve put it up for sale on a couple of places to see if there’s any bites with no luck, so I’m either going to have to put it on eBay or hang onto it for now. I’ve said before why I don’t play Fantasy, and while that was three years ago, a lot of the concerns still hold today. The armies are just so large model-wise, which makes the cost a bit prohibitive when I have 40K as my main go-to game. Throw in the time to assemble and paint all those models – let alone play with them – and the space required to store them, and it’s just not practical right now. I’d love to give the game a spin, though. I’d even love to play it at lower point levels where my smaller collection would fit in. However, the percentage-based system for army building, especially for Lords and Heroes, seems to make that unworkable. Admittedly, I don’t yet “get” listbuilding for Fantasy, so I don’t see how it works or what I should take at those lower levels (never mind that the percentages make some of the minis I do have, like the IoB Prince on Griffin, unusable at lower levels).
2. Firestorm Armada
My interest in this game has mostly grown from listening to Jaded Gamercast (which helped spur my Fantasy interest as well), and it seems like it’s one of those games that has a relatively low buy-in at first. Fleet starter, rulebook, maybe a deck of cards, and you’re off! Thing is, I’m already dabbling in a few other low-model-count games, like Malifaux, MERCS, and X-Wing, and while I may not have played all of them, I have minis already. More importantly, I know other poeple who play, so I can theoretically get games in sometime. Not so with FSA. On the other hand, if I had a couple of fleets sitting around, maybe I could get something together and teach someone. That, of course, would double my investment in time and money and space. But if my supply of all three were unlimited, then I’d go for it in a heartbeat.
3. Battlefleet Gothic
Take Firestorm Armada, add in my love of 40K, and then add a twist of increasing unavailability. For this one, I’d not just need unlimited time, but rather a time machine (where’s that TARDIS?) to get in at its peak. The good thing, though, is that I know enough 40K players that if I could get my hand on some, I could probably lure people in for a game or three with fleets for their army of choice.
4. Battletech
Now, for this one I’d want a time machine, but not to get the miniatures. I’d want it to go back to my high school days, when I got my first taste of Battletech. I loved it, and I wish I’d held onto what I had, back in the days of the Unseen mechs and cardboard popup figures. I’d then use my time machine to jump to when the 25th Anniversary box came out with the plastic minis, which I missed out on because I had to choose between games I already played actively and one that I might like to dabble in again. If I had all the time and money I needed, though, I’d gladly take this one up again.
5. Infinity
This one just looks interesting, but I already have a near-future skirmish game in MERCS. I also don’t know if I could get many people into it because of the rules complexity. In fact, I’d probably just get this one for the minis if I had the time and space to paint and store them. Oh, and space for all of the terrain that the game requires to work properly (which would do double-duty for Infinity and MERCS).
So… what about you? What games would you play if you had all the time, space, and money you’d ever want?