As you may have read in this article, it can sometimes be slightly intimidating to get into the wargaming hobby or collect miniatures en masse for any other reason. The aim of this guide is to make the idea of collecting miniatures seem less daunting.

In this part of the guide I'll be speaking about what steps to take to get started in the hobby. In next week's part of the guide I'll be talking about model preparation and assembly.

Step 1: Preparation

Even just collecting miniatures as a hobby can be a very time-consuming experience, and you don't want hours of work ruined because you weren't prepared for something, do you?

First thing's first: What particular miniatures do you want? Companies such as Games Workshop, Privateer Press, Spartan Games and Battlefront Miniatures all specialise in oil-based plastic miniatures and tin-based metal miniatures. Most miniatures ranges you'll be looking at will feature metal or plastic miniatures, and the best tools to deal with building such miniatures are:

-Plastic glue
-Super Glue
-Plastic clippers
-A variety of metal files
-Modelling knife
-At least 3 kinds of paint brush (Fine detail, standard and basecoating brushes)
-Paints
-And of course: Miniatures

At the very least, you can get away without buying files and a modelling knife. If you're buying miniatures for wargaming purposes then you can put off buying paints whilst/if you're still learning how to play.

In all my years of collecting miniature kits, I've always found that a pair of sharp plastic-clippers to be the most essential tool in my toolbox. It's brilliant for its main purpose of clipping plastic models off the sprue, as you might expect, but it also works well for pulling off long strands of flash from metal models and when you're in a pinch they can be used as an ad hoc file or modelling knife (It's a rather brash thing to do, but it's saved me from modelling disaster more than once in the past).