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.

Do we need games magazines anymore?

Jake Thornton has posted the Beta rules for the latest three Dreadball teams on the Quirkworthy blog. Once, long ago, these would have been published in a printed magazine. That they now appear on the games designers blog highlights one more area once occupied by dead tree publications that has been annexed by the web.

With the Internet all but ubiquitous, there is really very little left for gaming magazines. Experimental rules work better on the Internet because the designer can get immediate feedback and make quick updates. News is also better managed by websites and blogs which can update more frequently and post corrections.

Other traditional areas covered by magazines, from painting advice, modelling guides, reviews, battle reports may not be any better online, but they certainly aren't any worse and have the advantage of costing far less to publish. It feels like the only advantage print has is that it can be carried to the gaming table, but in the era of Ipads, Tablets and smart phones even that advantage is falling away.

Looking back ten years or more, most miniature companies looking to make a name for themselves, or just compete with Games Workshop, felt the need for some kind of house journal or periodical, from Cry Havoc (Rackham) to No Quarter (Privateer Press). Mantic Games tried it for a little while, but dropped the idea quite quickly. Wyrd Games produce a digital magazine, before focusing their attention on the website. And Cipher Studios have run their blog as a kind of rolling online magazine.

So it feels like the era of the printed games magazine is ending. Does it really matter? Have we not replaced one way of distributing content with another, better, system? Well there is one respect in which a magazine can be better than the web. The web offers an article, blog or video for everyone on almost any subject imaginable. But it is so vast, that you have to go and look for it. A good magazine can offer a selection of articles on a variety of subjects, some of which you might not have thought to read. I have started more than one army and more than one game simply because of a sideways glance at an article in a magazine I had bought for a completely different reason. Yes it is possible to stumble across interesting and unexpected content on the Internet, but are you as likely to?

So if the printed magazine is becoming a thing of the past, there is at least one area where we may be worse off.

Expand or Die

Since the announcement, via video clip, that Privateer Press would be producing 'collosal' War Jacks for War Machine, opinion has been divided over whether this is an exciting new development or a evidence of the Games Workshop-isation of the Company. Sceptical voices have been making whispers of Apocalypse.

I don't feel particularly strongly either way, I have dabbled in War Machine and Hordes, but am not a heavy collector of either. However, the announcement is interesting to me because it says something about the nature and development of Fantasy wargames over time.

For some years now Games Workshop have been locked in an endless cycle of renewal, with new editions every five years or so and the refreshing of their armies in order to keep up momentum. They release the occasional genuinely new miniature, but the bulk of them are now new versions of existing miniatures. Their current goal seems to be to re-release as much as possible in plastic.

Since Third edition, each version of Warhammer has managed to reach a state of near completeness by the time its next edition is due. Which is to say that pretty much all the miniatures and army books have been available and there has been no strict requirement for GW to produce anything more. No edition has been perfect, but then no game is. The new editions are driven now by marketing concerns, the need to have something apparently new to sell each month.

This has generally been perceived as the behaviour of a cynical, greedy company artificially creating demand while steadily inflating its prices in order to exploit its customer base. Certainly Games Workshop has behaved badly enough over the years to justify much of the hostility towards them. However, I think there is more than a touch of desperation about their current position.

Wargames are like Empires: only strong while expanding. There is a constant need for new material, rules and miniatures to retain the interest of the customer base. That isn't to say there is no interest in older models, but a company that has nothing new to offer can all too easily drift off the radar.

When a game is first starting out there is an active need for new models and rules from both companies and players, but as the game ages additional material starts to become a barrier to entry. Privateer Press's approach has been to periodically produce new rulebooks with new rules for all its factions, but that meant by the end of first edition War Machine that a player needed to buy five rule books to get all the rules for the initial four factions.

New models can be similarly problematic. The more that are produced the more the initial enthusiasts can collect, but new players are faced with increasingly more choices and experienced opponents who have much larger armies. Meanwhile, it becomes more difficult for games shops to dedicate the space to display the full range. Plus there is the difficulty of coming up with a constant stream of new ideas.

In the face of this, wargame companies have essentially three options:

1. Soldier on regardless, producing more and rules and models and risk putting off potential new players.
2. Sweep everything clean, starting over or focusing on a new game, and alienate existing player.
3. Something of a fudge, release a new edition tweaking some of the rules problems that have been discovered and produce new, hopefully better, versions of existing models.

After Thirty years of Warhammer and twenty five of Warhammer 40,000 Games Workshop are trapped inexorably in stage 3, with new editions every few years that add less and less each time.

At the time I started out with Games Workshop, they were just starting to reach this point. Warhammer 40,000 was still developing in new and unexpected directions, but Warhammer was stagnant. A few new Chaos models appeared, but, essentially, the game and miniature range was complete. For the first two years after I started, essentially nothing new appeared for Warhammer and, at least among my friends, no-one paid it any attention to it at all. Then fourth edition appeared and interest picked up. Suddenly all my friends were collecting Warhammer armies, and every new army book prompted some-one to start a new army. Given the results it's hardly surprising GW have repeated the tactic.

I find the situation with Privateer Press intriguing because they have clearly tried option 3 recently with the new editions of War Machine and Hordes. but thanks to prompt and rapid army book releases have found themselves quite quickly back where they started. Now they seem to be trying tactic 1, keep producing new and exciting models and hope that new players are intrigued and not overwhelmed.

I am not making any judgement about either company, but it is fascinating to me that ultimately all successful wargames must end up in the same place.