Your first month of historical wargaming
You won't play your first game in week one — you'll be assembling and painting. Here's what that first month actually looks like, and when it starts being worth it.
By The JustBeginning Editors · Published June 3, 2026
Historical wargaming is different from most hobbies in one important way: you will not play your first game the day your box arrives. You’ll assemble plastic minis, prime them, paint them, and base them — and only then will you sit across a table from an opponent and roll dice. That delay puts some people off. It keeps everyone else hooked for life.
This is what your first month actually looks like: the decisions, the workflow, and the exact moment when this stops being a project and starts being a hobby.
Week 1: Choose your system and order your kit
The most important decision in historical wargaming happens before you buy anything. Your game system determines your army, your rules, and your opponent pool — and armies are not interchangeable between systems. A box of Bolt Action plastic infantry won’t convert into a SAGA warband.
The three most beginner-friendly systems:
Bolt Action (WWII, 28mm scale) is the best starting point for most people. The player base is the largest of any historical wargame, local clubs almost universally have Bolt Action players, and the YouTube tutorial content is excellent. The WWII theme is immediately legible — you don’t have to learn a fictional setting alongside the rules. The tradeoff: a standard 500-point army is 30-50 minis, so you’ll be painting for a few weeks before your first game.
SAGA (Dark Ages and Medieval, 28mm scale) is the smart pick if you want to reach the table faster. A legal warband is 12-24 minis — paintable over a weekend if you keep the scheme simple. The battle-board mechanic (each faction has a unique board of dice-powered abilities) creates real tactical depth without a complicated rulebook. Vikings vs. Anglo-Saxons is a classic opener.
Flames of War (WWII, 15mm scale) suits players who want divisional-scale engagements. The smaller scale means individual minis are cheaper, but army counts are higher — expect 50-100 figures in a standard list. The painting goes faster at 15mm, though the detail is fiddler to pick out.
Once you’ve chosen: order your starter set (which should include the rulebook and dice), a primer spray, and paint supplies in the same cart. The minis will be ready to work on the moment they arrive.
Weeks 2–3: Assembly and the mold-line grind
Open your starter set and you’ll find frames of plastic sprues — the parts held in a grid of runners. Every part clips from the runner with side cutters, then gets cleaned up with a hobby knife before assembly. This process is slower than it looks in YouTube videos, and that’s fine.
Assembly workflow for a single mini:
- Clip the part from the sprue with fine side cutters (Tamiya 74001 — don’t cheap out here).
- Scrape the gate mark flat with a hobby knife. Every clip point leaves a small nub that catches paint if you ignore it.
- Run the knife along any mold lines — the faint seam where the two halves of the mold met. They’re subtle until you prime, then they’re obvious.
- Dry-fit the parts before gluing. Nothing is worse than cementing a torso to legs pointing the wrong direction.
- Apply Tamiya Extra Thin Cement to plastic joins. Touch the brush to the seam and the solvent wicks in — capillary action does the work.
- Hold for 10 seconds and move on.
A squad of ten infantry takes 45-90 minutes the first time through. By your third squad, you’ll do it in 30. Don’t try to assemble the whole box in one sitting — it’s a recipe for sloppy joins and lost parts. Do one squad at a time.
A note on primer: before any paint goes on, every mini needs to be primed. Gray or brown spray primer is standard for historical. It creates a tooth for the paint to grip, fills micro-scratches, and gives you a neutral base to read colors accurately. Spray outdoors, sweep the can constantly, and keep the nozzle six inches from the mini.
Week 3: Painting your first squad
The most common mistake new wargame painters make is trying to paint like a display hobbyist. Display painting — blending, layering, non-metallic metal — takes years to develop and produces individual showcase pieces. You are not doing that. You are painting 40 infantry to a table-ready standard that looks good at three feet. Different goal, different techniques.
The three-step wargame paint method:
-
Base coat — one thin coat of each color in its correct area. Brown for leather, field grey for German uniforms, olive drab for US gear. Thin your paints with a few drops of water. The coat should be transparent enough to see the primer through it; a second coat will opaque it. Two thin coats, not one thick one.
-
Shade wash — after base coats dry, brush a thin wash (Army Painter Quickshade or Citadel Shade) over the entire mini. It flows into recesses and adds instant depth and shadow. This single step makes a tabletop-quality mini look three times better. Let it dry for two hours, not twenty minutes — it stays tacky.
-
Edge highlight (optional but recommended) — pick out the raised edges of armor, weapons, and pouches with a slightly lighter version of the base color. Takes five minutes per mini and adds definition.
A squad of ten painted to this standard: 3-4 evening sessions. Your first squad will take longer; your fifth will take half as long.
Week 4: Basing and your first game
Basing is what ties minis to the battlefield. An unbased mini looks like a toy. A based mini looks like it belongs. The process takes less than a minute per figure: brush PVA glue on the base, dip in sand or grit, let dry, drybrush brown then tan, glue down static grass, done.
Once your first squad (or warband) is based and varnished, you’re ready to play. Don’t wait for the whole army — play your first game with whatever you’ve finished, using cardboard tokens for the units that aren’t painted yet. Most opponents won’t mind for a learning game, and the game will tell you which units you actually want to paint next.
What your first game will teach you:
The rules always make more sense in play than on paper. The order dice mechanic in Bolt Action feels abstract reading about it; it feels natural the second turn you actually draw dice from a bag. Don’t try to memorize the rulebook before playing. Read the overview section, find an opponent (your local game store’s club night is the best place), and look up rules as they come up.
After your first game, you’ll know whether you want to expand your force or try a different army. You’ll also know which units were fun to play and which you’ll never build again. Paint toward what you like — this is a hobby, and it lasts as long as you enjoy it.
Things you’ll fail at — and that’s fine
- Your first minis will look rough. This is universal. Keep them; most painters find the contrast with later work motivating.
- Assembly glue and primer decisions will be second-guessed. Everyone has a preferred brand. Try what you have, upgrade when you have opinions.
- You’ll buy minis before you’ve painted what you have. This is called “the pile of shame” and affects 100% of wargamers. Don’t try to fix it; just keep painting.
- Your first game will have rules wrong. Everyone plays their first few games with some rules misread. Look it up, correct it, move on.
What comes after month one
At the end of your first month you’ll have a painted, legal force and a game under your belt. From here, the hobby opens up:
- Campaign play — most systems have campaign rules that create persistent armies with history across multiple games.
- Tournaments — Bolt Action especially has an active tournament scene; many local stores run beginner-friendly events.
- More painting — the pile of shame awaits.
The community at your local game store is the single best resource for all of this. Historical wargamers are, as a group, enthusiastic about sharing knowledge with newcomers. Show up, bring your minis, and ask questions.
Ready to buy your first kit? See our historical wargaming gear guide for the right starter set, paint kit, and tools for your chosen system.