If your interested I also have a companion video to this guide up on Youtube that is a good place to start. It gives a quick and brief synopsis of the major salient points.  I also want to take a quick second and thank everyone who watched and commented on the video and everyone that comes here and reads and leaves comments.  I will be making more videos and trying to update this blog with more information and articles as much as possible.  Unfortunately between work and school it doesn’t always leave me much time.  Anyway, on to the reason why you came here.

Necessary Tools

These are the tools that you really need and can’t live without.  I will try to provide prices for them where possible as well and give a brief description of it and why you need it.

• Hobby Knife: ($5 – $10) You will find a veritable plethora of uses for this.  From trimming flashing on your pieces, cutting up models to convert them, cutting out transfers, to stabbing your opponent when they kill your HQ on turn 1 before you even get to move him.  Like I said, the uses are endless.
• Clippers: ($8 – $15) Also known as sprue cutters.  As the name implies they well, they clip things.  Useful for cleaning up metal mini’s or clipping the pieces off of the sprue when you buy a box of miniatures.
• Super Glue: (Approx $8) You will need this for gluing your mini’s together. Also mainly used to glue your fingers to your other fingers, to the model, to your hand, to your pants, and especially to the table. You will generally glue your fingers together more than the model.
• Brushes: ($2 – $20 each) The stuff you put the paint on with.  As a general rule you don’t want to buy the packs of brushes that go for around $10 – $20 for a set.  They are good for things like dry brushes, applying  glue and varnish, etc.  That is about it though as they fall apart to quickly.  Get Sable or Kolinsky brushes.  You will need at least one set, though I recomend two.  One for normal paints, one for metallics.  You will need a range of sizes.  I suggest pointed round or detail round brushes: 10/0, 5/0, 0, 1, 2, 4 and flat brushes: 2, 4, & 6.
• Paint: ($3 – $5 per color) These tend to come in 12 to 17 ml bottle or pots and are generally sold individually.  You can buy them in sets.  I suggest Vallejo or Citadel paints. This is what your gonna cover your hands and hopefully with enough practice, the models with. They tend to last for a good while.  Get acrylics. NEVER GET ENAMEL! It is the tool of the devil and used only by right wing fundamentalist psychos for painting poorly speeled signs proclaiming that Jebus hates democrats.  Also get a can of flat black or white ACRYLIC spray paint or primer.  This will be the base coat for all of your models.  You can buy a can from Wal-Marx for like $1.  Do it.  Starving children in Africa will thank you for it.
• Water Pot: (Free) A glass, a cup, a bowl, your dog.  It doesn’t matter as long as it can hold water and you can wash out your brushes in them.

So that is really all of the necessary tools that you will need to get started with.  In a later article I will go into more detail on some of the optional items you can buy if you are ready to stop having a girlfriend and start being serious about mini war gaming.  For now though this is enough to get you started.