Musings of a Gaming Butterfly

29 May, 2026

When I first had the idea of blogging about the games that I play, I was going to call it Musings of a Gaming Butterfly.

A gaming butterfly is someone that plays lots of different game systems, flitting between them like an indecisive shopper at the meal deal section.¹ Do I want the wrap today, or the sandwich? Maybe I will mix it up and go for sushi. No, the pasta is calling...

I play quite a few games. Not loads, and there are definitely people that will play more. But in proportion to my free time and my disposable income, I play quite a few games.

My game playing tends to go in cycles. My good friend introduces me to a game. I resist, saying that I have too many ongoing projects and I couldn't possible afford to get into another game. He promises I won't need to buy anything, that he has everything I will need, and I should give it a go just so he can decide if he enjoys it and wants to keep it. I agree to play. Before playing, I read up about the game, read the rules, the lore, the history. I look at the models. I fall In love, get obsessed, design my ideal army. We play the game. It is good. We have fun. I buy his unwanted models, and then some more. I begin my army, getting it painted. We play some more games. On the drive home one day, he introduces me to another game.

This then repeats. We play each game for three to six times before jumping to the next.

I always try to resist.

I never succeed.²

Why do I resist?

I tell myself it is because of time and money. Because of the unfinished projects. But really, I think it is because I love to get stuck into a system.

I want to master each of the games I play. Not to a competitive level, I do not have the attention span for that. But to the point that I am not needing to look at the rulebook to check what being stunned means in this particular game.

With board games, it is pretty easy to get to this point. I think this is part of the reason that board gamers end up with vast, sprawling collections, shelves buckling under the weight of paper, plastic and cardboard. Learning new board game systems is fun and interesting, but never too taxing.³

With miniatures games, there is usually a lot more to learn. There are just more interactions that need to be covered, and the games tend to be more freeform. Rules for different models, different weapons. Rules for terrain, different theatres of war. Some miniatures games are simpler than others, but even the stripped back skirmish games tend to come with a litany of keywords and special rules to get to grips with.

And the rules are fun. Learning the rules is part of the fun. I enjoy trying to solve niche interactions, answering exactly what happens when two different sections of rules collide. I think of myself as quite quick at learning rules, but really terrible at retaining them.

I enjoy the process of reading and learning rules, I need more time with each ruleset to get stuck into it.

My friend tends to talk about his three games of the year. These are the three games is he going to focus on in the year. I don't think I have known him to ever stick to just three.

But I like it as a system. Three games is a manageable number of miniatures games to keep the rules in my head for.

The problem is there are just too many fun games out there! And other games that are not as fun, but still interest me and keep pulling me in. cough Warhammer 40k cough.

So maybe instead of three games per year, we should try focusing on arcs of a game. Learn the game, get the game, play a bunch of one-off games, play a narrative/campaign, then move to the next game.

This is pretty much what we are doing now, but with the added narrative/campaign. I think this is what we are missing. The chance to string together a group of games into a bigger picture, which lets us put into practice what we have learned from the game.

Once an arc is over, we can still continue to play that game, but with less focus. This should leave space to focus on the next new hotness.

Maybe.

I will give it a go and see how we get on. 11th edition of Warhammer 40k is just round the corner and promises a more narrative focus, so maybe this is the perfect time.

Okay, ramble over.

Quack