Double Duty

Do you use the same miniatures for more than one game?

Obviously there are some companies who have actively used a range of miniatures as for more than one game. Rackham did it with Confrontation and Ragnarok, Games Workshop with Mordheim and Warhammer and soon Mantic with Deadzone and Warpath, to name but three. Not to mention the venerable history of borrowing models from a tabletop army to use in a Dungeon Crawl board game (Advanced HeroQuest, Warhammer Quest, Dwarf King's hold and so on).

But what about using the same, or almost the same, army for two different table top games. Mantic started out making models that were blatantly usable in Warhammer and Avatars of War have done the same, but now they have their own games would you still use the models for Warhammer?

I have to admit I have always felt a bit funny about this. I can't pretend its rational, but somehow I feel as though each army should be tailored for a particular fantasy world. I don't like the idea that my Mantic Undead should have a kind of cross dimensional existence in both the Warhammer and Mantic worlds. Weirdly, the rule even applies to games that aren't associated with a particular range of miniatures. I have been looking at Song of Blades and Heroes lately, but even there I think I would have to use a specific set of models for the game. It makes no sense, and its costing me money and shelf space.

Strangely, this self-imposed rule doesn't apply, or at least doesn't apply as strongly, to historical games. I have now issue with the idea of using my Normans and Saxons for Clash of Empires or Hail Caesar, or my (very slowly) developing Samurai army for Taiko or Osprey's forthcoming Ronin. Maybe, because historical miniatures represent actual people, they cannot be coupled to a rules set in the way that an invented fantasy or sci-fi range can?

Maybe there's hope for me in this direction. Just recently, I tried playing Kings of War using my Normans as a human kingdom, and now I have ordered a bunch of Mantic's Ogres to bulk them out in fantasy gaming only. The big test will be if I ever use them for Warhammer.