One of my favourite YouTubers is Trent from Miscast, and a while back he had the idea of creating a single army to play every game. The idea seemed completely mad to me. How could you possibly create an army to cover all sci-fi, fantasy and historical settings?
Although if the aim of this blog is to be thrifty, then it’s certainly an idea I can get behind. After all my first serious attempt at a Warhammer army were Daemons, precisely because they could go across multiple games.
I can’t seem to find the original clip where he mentioned it, however here’s a video of him making a multipurpose model for four different games:
https://youtu.be/nopTayKTvLI?si=A1G4Q73PCMJz6Fxh
I also recently had some models arrive from Ramshackle Games. Some Boglanders to be precise:
The arrival of the Boglanders really threw a spanner in the works as my goal this bank holiday weekend was to get my Bolt Action loose ends tied up, alas no hobby plan survives contact with the enemy!
The Boglanders are essentially a range of goblins, but goblins in a more Labyrinth kind of way, in that a goblin can look like anything. Curtis’ idea at Ramshackle was to create a miniature line that served multiple purposes. In the back of the Boglander’s source book which you can freely download here:
http://downloads.ramshacklegames.co.uk/Boglanders/Boglanders_source_web.pdf
Curtis explains how to use the minis for armies in Turnip28, Forbidden Psalm, Mini Gangs, Mordheim, The Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game and Nuclear Renaissance.
The key to the Boglanders is how they are made, each one is essentially a one piece cast, with usually one or two arms missing (I say one piece, as in the Boglanders lore they are often missing one or both of their arms). You then buy packs of arms to attach which can include melee weapons, black powder guns, mechanical arms, insect pincers and sci-fi guns. I’m already considering the sheer number of skirmish games these guys will do great in. And I am thoroughly enjoying painting them:
However… I’m still pondering the ‘one army, every game’ idea. Of course you could proxy anything for anything and if you have a nice enough opponent get away with it.
“So the plushie Pikachu is a Panzer 4?”
However that’s not really what I’m talking about here. Could you really get somewhat close to one army to rule them all (provided we’re talking 28mm Skirmish level games)?
What about Afghan Tribesmen?
I bought a box of Wargames Atlantic’s Tribesmen a while back for the One Box Wargame Challenge, painted them up, but never finished the challenge. The Afghan Tribesmen certainly do for a long expanse of human history, and wouldn’t be out of place in a fantasy setting, nor a sci-fi. There almost certainly are planets with inhabitants in 40k that dress similarly, and are armed similarly.
A few different special weapons guys, and a bigger pool of vehicles to pick from, maybe a Leman Russ for 40k, and you might have to stick to WW2 vehicles for Bolt Action. But your infantry bulk could be taken care of by the humble Tribesman.
Thoughts? Especially if you have another idea for a multi-game spanning force!
Deathzap 
I use some of my ACW troops for Gerolsteiners, French, Japanese/Cerileans, Argentinians and Chileans but that is in a vaguely similar late Victorian/Edwardian tie frame. My Confederates in slouch hats have served as Boers and Mexicans/Cortesians. My Sudan dervishes (with swords and shields) have served as ancient tribesmen. My British Guardsmen in fur hats have also served Grand Fenwick.
Like you I’ve used ‘colonial’ troops for sci fi
In fact drifting stuff into sci fi is probably the easy bit 🙂
Oh and just to add that in 6mm everything is so much easier to drift 🙂
That’s an extremely good point!
Boglanders – they look great! Fortunately I am overrun with unpainted plastic and metal otherwise I might be tempted: Nice painting by the way. I think everyone has an inner mind that would cope with armies crossing boundaries. As a kid I remember a Doctor Who episode where soldiers from across the eras were all time warped into one place. The doctor had to solve the problem and get everyone back to their right time – all in 45 minutes of course. The thing is watching Napoleon rubbing shoulders with Attila the Hun next to an ACW soldier, who I remember most, somehow made this mishmash a lot more sensible when it came to my embracing fantasy historicals.
I tend to use a some WW2 infantry for SF, especially French Partizan or some Russian figures seem to work well.
GW’s fantasy Skaven have a lot of sci-fi and steampunk looking firearms and there are many images of kitbashed “space rat” miniatures online. More specifically, I’m thinking of a Skaven-themed W40k Nurgle army, which is also a Nurgle-themed Skaven army for AoS. But I really don’t know how to use them in a historical wargame!
That sounds like a great project!
With a small group of Ninja you can play historycal, fantasy, modern and near future wargame!