Salute Number Ten

Another Salute, the UK's biggest wargaming show, has been and gone and it only occurred to me on the day that this would be my tenth. My first was in 2006 and I have been to every one since.

Cloudships of Mars Salute 2006

In last year's post, I described Salute as "a pop-up wargaming superstore that trades for only one day each year." I still think that's an accurate description, but I don't think it's a negative thing. Salute is essentially a trade show, but one that gives small producers and traders representing what is, still, a very niche hobby the chance to reach the largest possible audience. At the same time, it gives hobbyists a chance to buy products they would struggle to find anywhere else.

But ten shows has left me wondering if their have been any major trends or developments? My Salute 2006 experience was dominated by Privateer Press who had just launched Hordes and had a huge stand set up at the front of the show to reflect that. Also present was Wizkids games, producers of Heroclix and other pre-painted miniatures with dials in their bases. Despite their medium-sized stand, their foot print was greatly increased by row upon row of demo games.

 SF30 Salute 2009

Both were largely absent from Salute 2015. Privateer press long ago gave up running a personal stand, although their miniatures are still represented by a number of traders. Since being sold by their parent company Topps, Wizkids has become smaller and more US focused, and their presence at Salute has dwindled.

Games Workshop too has given up running their own stand. They are clearly comfortably represented by independent traders and it is unlikely they ever did much business given the amount of discounted Games Workshop products available elsewhere. Forge World was left to fly the Games Workshop flag, and was still doing well this year, although they had eliminated their usual disorganised mob in favour of an orderly, if extremely long, queue.

Lego Star Wars Salute 2010

In contrast, independent trader Wayland games have seen their presence expand year on year to the point where they are essentially running a their own wall-less games shop from the centre of the Excel centre, offering proper checkouts, carry bags and the chance to pay with plastic, a dangerous temptation for many wargamers.

This year, however, they were challenged by the Troll Trader who were offering a similar open-plan shopping experience, combined with even sharper discounts and an extensive range of bargain bins.

Trebuchet Salute 2013

If there is a trend here, it is the character of the show has shifted from being dominated by big producers to the larger independent traders. That is not to say that producers do not have a presence. A great number including, but not limited to, Perry Miniatures, Heresy Miniature, Hasslefree Miniatures, West Wind productions, GCT Studios, Crooked Dice and Warlord games, have been attending Salute for years meeting enthusiasts and diligently plugging their latest games.

But the biggest players, by which I mean those with the largest footprint and the most visible presence have shifted. With Games Workshop and the largest US companies gone, the place has been taken by traders, but they can only offer what the producers supply. Wayland and the Troll trader may get the bulk of the business, but the shopping experience is likely to be brief. If this gives the small producers more time to actively engage with their customers this may be no bad thing.

Stingray Salute 2015

One significant shift made only this year was the change to the Salute grand prize. Previously this had been a raffle held at the end of the day in which a random ticket would be drawn and the winner given a large prize of Salute vouchers. This had the effect of keeping a lot of attendees at the show until they end and ensured that a large crowd gathered for the shows gaming and painting awards.

This year, the prize draw was replaced with golden tickets hidden in three of the shows goody bags. The winners, and the much larger number of losers, knew where they stood much earlier in the day,  but it removed one incentive to stay to the end. Whether this lead to a tailing off as they day progressed I don't know, because for the first time in ten years, I didn't stay until the end.

Abandoning Metal

A few days ago another miniature company, Heresy miniatures, announced that it was putting up its prices. This is becoming all too common, particularly in the UK where the rising cost of metal has been accompanied by a hike in VAT which has hit particularly hard.

I have to give Heresy considerable credit for taking the time to fully explain the reasons for these increase and to note that the cost of metal used is at £23.75 per KG. The consequence of this was that much of the discussion on the miniature page was sympathetic, even supportive. It is worth noting, however, that Heresy are still trying to keep prices as low as possible understanding that there are limits to how much people will pay for a miniature no matter how justified. This lead one poster, by the name of JoeKGusher to speculate that there might come a point when we look back on this time as a golden age of miniature production as we play with paper chits.

It's a very strong statement, but it did lead me to think back on how miniature gaming has changed in the last few years, particularly when looking at Fantasy and Science Fiction. Games Workshop have always been in the business of selling large scale, mass-battle games, but if we look at the rest of the industry there appears to have been a shift. Five or Six years ago two of the biggest non-GW players were Rackham with Confrontation and Ragnarok and Privateer Press with War Machine. The former produced a skirmish game that was intended to provide a bridge to a larger scale game, the latter was designed to scale up to almost Warhammer size.

If we look today at the Fantasy and Science Fiction games being produced we find Malifaux, Anima Tactics, Helldorado, Infinity all skirmish games with no pretension at being anything bigger. Other than GW, the only company pushing a mass battle game is Mantic who are focused on ultra-cheap plastics. The new norm appears to be metals for skirmish games with no more than a dozen miniatures aside and plastic for mass battles with metal used for personalities and resin for big things.

We haven't quite gotten to that stage with Historical miniatures, but that is very much the direction of travel. More and more plastic historicals are being produced, and companies like Warlord are increasingly using metal only for specialists, characters and extra parts. It has always been cheaper to produce historical miniatures than fantasy and science fiction, which may support metal for a while longer, but if the price of metal continues to rise then plastic may be the only choice. Historical miniature companies are by no means immune to rising costs in any case and a number have put their prices up.

So the future of wargaming is looking to be plastics for mass battles and metals only for skirmishing and personalities. In a few years time it is likely that the bulk of most people's armies will be plastic.

UPDATE

Since I wrote the above, rumours have been all over the Internet about Games Workshop giving up on selling metal models. The details are unclear, and vary from a temporary hault in production, to switching to resin, to making metal miniatures available only through direct sales. Games Workshop have said, as yet, nothing.

If this any truth in this, I can't see them dropping all metal miniatures at a stroke or shifting to resin. There are too many armies that are dependent on metal miniatures, if only for characters, to make a dropping all metal are viable proposition. At the same time, GW's target market of young teenagers, many of whom will have never played a wargame before, makes a shift to a toxic substance that would require warning labels and leave their products unable to bare the European toy safety kite mark impractical.

If it does happen, I suspect the most likely result would be a shift to plastic/resin similar to the stuff that Mantic and Privateer Press use. This has the virtue of being cheaper than metal, but holds detail well and is not actually toxic.

Either way, this does seem to support my view that for mass battle games, metal may be dying off, though I am surprised to see it being apparently abandoned even for character models.

Two Models of doing business with Models

There seems to be a rise in the number of games companies offering generic sci-fi and fantasy miniatures. That is to say, miniatures not tied to a particular game world or with no particular rules set in mind. Some are offering alternatives miniatures for an existing IP, usually Games Workshop. Mantic Games started off like this, before developing Kings of War, but there are others such as Gribbly miniatures or Avatars of War that offer good alternatives to the miniatures GW produce.

Also on the increase are companies offering unofficial lookalikes of characters from TV, films and comics. Examples include, the 'not' Doctor Who miniatures produced by Heresy and Crooked Dice or Harby from Haslefree miniatures who in no way resembles Hellboy or Marv from Sin City. The newly arrived Elodie Mae offer miniatures for fans of anime, manga and Japanese video games. There are also a number of 'not' Buffys, 'not' Lara Crofts and 'not' Jack Sparrows for the gamer who wants to game with an unlicensed IP.

Then there are the companies that produce miniatures with no particular IP in mind and without wishing to produce an entire range, simply supplying miniatures that can be used in a number of different games. Heresy have a large range here, as do Haslefree, with Pig Iron productions supplying Sci-Fi. This isn't even close to an exhaustive list.

Part of this rise can in part be put down to the Internet which has enabled small 'garage' companies to become even more prevalent in the industry than before. Thanks to the ease of marketing and selling to customers through websites there is no longer a need to sell an entire range of models to a Games Store. The rise of generic rule systems has also been helped by the Internet, thanks to the possibility of PDF sales. This in turn increases the appeal of generic miniatures no tied to a specific game as they can always be Incorporated into a generic rule set. Word of Mouth has become more powerful as a marketing tool thanks to the growth of message forums, social networking, blogs and sites like coolminiornot.

But at the same time a very different trend has developed for highly specialised games with a very specific appeal. I have mentioned Anima Tactics before. This is a fantasy game with an aesthetic inspired by Manga and Anime in which most miniatures are specific individuals. The game is skirmish based, requires very few miniatures to play and it is unlikely that most players will buy more than one of most models. Then there is Malifaux, Wyrd Games fantasy/ si-fi/ horror/ wild west/ steam punk/ Victoriana skirmish game with a distinctive card based rule set intended to reflect it's bizarre hybrid setting. And this is just the tip of the Ice burg.

So how is that the industry appears to be trending in two directions simultaneously? Both more generic and more specific? Oddly, I think this is all linked. The same interconnectedness between customers and producers that allows companies to survive with a small range of miniatures also allows games with very niche to find their audience.

There may only be a handful of potential Malifaux or Anima Tactics fans compared with a more traditional fantasy game like Warhammer, but in the Internet world it is possible for Wyrd Games and Cipher Studios to reach all, or at very least most of them. A smaller market can still support a game if that market is reached more efficiently. And this is more practical in a world where the Internet is so prevalent. It's not by accident that Cipher Studios has worked so hard to release Anima and Helldorado in so many languages at once, they know that there audience is diverse and wide spread and they want to reach all of them.

So the Internet allows and indeed encourages companies to both specialise and generalise. Both ways of doing business can work well.