Gaming on the Cheap

I tend to be on the lookout for bargains and deals when it comes to games and gaming accessories.  I hit the usual discount racks or used game areas of my local gaming stores every time I pay them a visit.  I am fortunate that Tulsa has a really awesome used book store - Gardner's - that has gaming items also.  They used to have much more but some of the employees became hip to ebay and many of the items are put up on their site.  I have found other sources to buy low cost gaming items.

Dollar General and Dollar Tree

If you have gamer friends on social media then I am sure you have seen these two items pictured above in the last six moths.  I found the Skeleton Army at Dollar General.  I believe they are supposed to go on cupcakes or used as some sort of Halloween decoration.  They are a little bit bigger than the Reaper Bones I use but does it really matter? I bought the dice at Dollar Tree for one dollar a pack.  I had intended to go back and buy some more but they were wiped out by the time I returned.  I have been on the lookout ever since but I have not had any luck so far.  

Hobby Lobby

I found these sets of brushes at Hobby Lobby for $5.99 to $6.99 each.  As you can see, there are at least six brushes in each set.  If you buy these brushes at Hobby Lobby you are paying more than a dollar less than what you would be paying for just one brush from the "official sources".  I am still very much learning the art of painting and I think it makes no sense to use top of the line equipment to practice.  I have had no issues using the cheaper brushes.  You just have to clean and care for the brushes; that is true regardless of cost.  Honestly, I have had good results with even cheaper brush sets from Wal-Mart.  In a nutshell, shop smart.

Inserts

Now for the best deal on this list because it is free because I am just re-purposing these inserts or packing material or whatever they are called.  These are the extra things packed in with coffee makers or other small appliances.  I have kept a stack of these things from the last six or more items I have bought.  You could always ask friends or family for theirs if you needed many more.  I am going to paint the one above on the right a silver color and add yellow lights and maybe some sort of turrets on the top.  It will be an outpost, research lab, or some other structure for Warhammer 40K or the big box Ogre set.

What are you ideas and suggestions?

Escape From Camp Blood (playtesting components)

I have been searching through the internet for mail order supplies that may help when I get to the point of creating a prototype of the game board and pieces.  The game board can be found simulated  by using a large piece of poster board until the details get worked out.  At that point, there are various sizes of blank folding boards that can be used for the game board.  As you can see, the game board is not an issue at all.  The poster board is a cheap alternative to use during playtesting until a final design is determined. 

 

With the biggest obstacle out of the way, I turned to the rest of the components.  Along with the poster board - could be purchased at Dollar General - I could use the small index cards for the item and event cards used during the game.  I could even cut each card in half and that could serve as two cards.  For less than $5 I could have a big chunk of the playtest materials ready.  Granted, there would not be any fancy art or anything at this point BUT that should not be an issue since all of this is for purely playtesting use.

 

The final hurdle to the components is some sort of counters, tokens, etc. to serve as representations of the various campers and the slasher they are avoiding.  I thought about using pawns - and I might for the initial playtesting - but I really associate them with chess and other games instead of a game about eighties slasher films.  Then I stumbled upon these little figures called meeples and thought that they would work perfectly. 

 

 

I found these things at Meeple Source and they have a wide variety of board gaming supplies that I could use.  There are all sorts of game boards (just like I need), counters, various tokens, monster meeples, people meeples, giant meeples, and all sorts of other things.  Other examples are pictured below.

 

Now that I have satisfied my curiosity about gathering game pieces that will look reasonably well done for a reasonable price it is time to get back to brainstorming.  More later...