Since acquiring the Helldorado game system, Cipher Studios seems to have been a bit overloaded and haven't been releasing their Anima Tactics figures at the usual pace. Previously they had put out two or three figures a month, but in the last month this has slipped. The lack of figures and announcements of new figures has lead to much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the Anima fan community.This was relieved somewhat by the recent announcement of two new figures on Cipher's blog and forums.
Personally I was glad of the break. I already have plenty of other models to paint and no shortage of Anima Tactics figures to game with. What I did find interesting was how little time it took before vocal members of the message board community started worrying that the game was and before long no-one will play it. The ironic twist was that similar complaints have been made about Cipher's handling of Helldorado, with delays to the release of English rulebook being accused of doing untold harm to the game (despite English rules still available here).
I kind of get that people are worried about investing in a game that isn't going to last. It can be a pain having a box full of models and no-one to play against. But the speed of reaction seems excessive. Anima Tactics has plenty of models for all factions even Black Sun, the most recently released. There's plenty to keep the game going without a constant schedule of releases. It seems that a few too many sudden deaths of different games have left wargamers a little jumpy to see the least. Though it may also be that wargamers are a little too trained to believe marketing.
For a time, during Warhammer 6th and 7th edition, Games Workshop tried to release all models for an army at same time as they released the army book, with maybe a couple of special characters left out. Given that their previous schedule had consisted of releasing models whenever they felt like it and that some units never appeared, this was a huge improvement. Fast forward a few years and the strategy changed, they would release some models with the army book and then wait to release more a few months later. This was spun as 'not waiting for a new army book before releasing new models', but it really meant not supplying all the models at the same time as the book.
What surprised me was level of enthusiasm for this plan from gamers.
"Hooray I don't have to wait for new army book for new models!" They cried.
"All they're doing is stagger releasing, not supplying anything new," I felt like yelling.
Plus, if all the models from the book are available, why does it matter if there aren't any more releases? You can still buy them six months later. It's as though people had thought that they couldn't buy a model more than a month old.
Privateer Press got much praise for the release of a cheap rule book for War Machine with rules for all models and factions. But then they followed it up with a new book, which cost more, and had more rules for all factions. Then again. And again. By time of the new edition, you needed five books for full rules for each faction. But again, several gamers seemed happy about this. "
"Yay, new releases, I don't have to wait ages for new models."
"But you still have the same number of models. And now you have to buy five rule books."
It wasn't so bad for players who had followed the game from the start, but it was pretty off-putting for new players or those who had lost track to be confronted by so many expansions. And before someone points out that under the new edition, Privateer Press have separate army books for each faction, they have admitted this is only a stop gap to get old models working with the new rules. The rules for every faction books have started up again.
I get that all gamers have an interest in their preferred game doing well. But it seems to have reached a stage where gamers confuse what is good for the game with what is good for them personally. Yes I want my games to do well, but I also want it to cost me as little as possible and to not have to spend out money every month on new models just to keep up. Also, new releases are not always a good thing, sometimes it can be nice to switch projects and not have a huge backlog of models and supplements to catch up with when you return to an old game.
So, in conclusion, I can live without new Anima Tactics figures for a month or so, don't care exactly when Games Workshop releases new models and would be more inclined to play War Machine if I didn't have to buy every supplement book to keep up.
Monday, 25 April 2011
Sunday, 17 April 2011
The big Salute Review 2011
After all the months of build up the big event, Salute, has been and gone. Very much the biggest event in the wargaming calendar, with so many traders and games that putting together a coherent summary is a near impossible task. While the South London Warlords always have a theme (this year the American Civil War) it is always very loosely applied. There is little sense of unity and no prevailing impression. Also, I am a long way from being a professional photographer and others will provide better photo summaries, such as Joe Dever.
Most people approach Salute with a particular focus, whether it is shopping, gaming or even trying to record the event. But focusing on one tends to be detrimental to others. You can't spend all your time shopping and get a good sense of the games. I was buying this year and so didn't spend as much time gaming as I might have liked.
With all that in mind, I won't try to describe the show as a whole, but will will try to convey a few key impressions.
2011 seems to be the year when every company is legally obliged to release a set of Ancients rules. At Salute Hail Caesar from Warlord went head to head with Great Escape Game's Clash of Empires, while Scarab miniatures were demoing War and Conquest. I had already preordered Clash of Empires. Hail Caesar intrigued, particularly due to its lack of army lists and Rick Priestly's writing, but it seems better suited to very large armies and large tables.
Both seemed to be doing well. COE was probably helped by being available from a good number of traders. I got mine from Gripping Beast as they were handing out a free diorama of a Roman Centurion fighting a Dacian soldier and they were running very short by the end of the show. For Hail Caesar you seemed to have to go the source, but Warlord apparently ran out by the end of the show.
Swayed by Conquest Game's and Gripping Beasts's plastics, I had decided to build armies of Saxons and Normans. This also had the advantage that they would be usable in Gripping Beast's and Tomahawk's forthcoming Saga rules for Dark Age skirmishes. The game was being demoed at Salute and has an intriguing set of rules involving special Saga dice that determine permissable based on a battle board that is specific to the forces being used. It also apparently designed to scale up to bigger games.
Also being demoed was Mantic Games Dwarf Kings Hold, a new dungeon crawl game that uses their existing plastic Undead and Dwarves, although the version on display was a touch different than usual, using three ups for a giant sized game. The game itself uses a counter-based activation system. Dwarves get four counters a turn, the Undead start with three but only get one new one a turn. However, the Undead counters allow up to four skeletons to be activated at once. The effect is that the Dwarves generally have more options, but the Undead are better positioned to plan ahead, and have to use superior numbers to bring down the dwarves who hit harder. I have to say I was pretty terrible as the Undead, getting comprehensively smashed by my little brother, but it was an enjoyably straight forward and quick playing experience, unlike some dungeon crawl games I have played. I could see it as a good way to end a gaming session or fill in a bit of spare time.
I always like to watch the Doctor Who games that Crooked Dice put on. The rules are unofficial and so free to download with most of the miniatures being improvised or unofficial look alikes. Crooked dice's game mixed their own models with Heresy's and Haslefree's to create what would have been the most convaluted episodes ever, with Daleks, the Master, Autons and Gas Mask children taking on the Doctor, the Time Agents and Winston Churchill.
Meanwhile, at pride of place at the front of the hall the Daleks were invading the Tomb of the Cybermen, in a large scale participation game with custom rules and figures made from, sadly out of production, die cast figures.
UPDATE I have since been informed that the models are not out of production, not sure why I got the from.
The last game I wanted to talk about was Cthuleudo, half Call of Cthulhu and half Cluedo and entirely mad. Apparently highly involved, it evidently went on for hour and a half. Even though I didn't get to play, the board was packed with detail, both ranging from Chulhu statues to hidden Daleks.
So Salute is over for another year and hopefully the miniatures acquired will last until the next one. I have stacks of new plastic Saxons and Normans to paint, not to mention Dr Who, Helldorado and Infinity all of which will have time for at a later date.
Most people approach Salute with a particular focus, whether it is shopping, gaming or even trying to record the event. But focusing on one tends to be detrimental to others. You can't spend all your time shopping and get a good sense of the games. I was buying this year and so didn't spend as much time gaming as I might have liked.
With all that in mind, I won't try to describe the show as a whole, but will will try to convey a few key impressions.
2011 seems to be the year when every company is legally obliged to release a set of Ancients rules. At Salute Hail Caesar from Warlord went head to head with Great Escape Game's Clash of Empires, while Scarab miniatures were demoing War and Conquest. I had already preordered Clash of Empires. Hail Caesar intrigued, particularly due to its lack of army lists and Rick Priestly's writing, but it seems better suited to very large armies and large tables.
Both seemed to be doing well. COE was probably helped by being available from a good number of traders. I got mine from Gripping Beast as they were handing out a free diorama of a Roman Centurion fighting a Dacian soldier and they were running very short by the end of the show. For Hail Caesar you seemed to have to go the source, but Warlord apparently ran out by the end of the show.
Swayed by Conquest Game's and Gripping Beasts's plastics, I had decided to build armies of Saxons and Normans. This also had the advantage that they would be usable in Gripping Beast's and Tomahawk's forthcoming Saga rules for Dark Age skirmishes. The game was being demoed at Salute and has an intriguing set of rules involving special Saga dice that determine permissable based on a battle board that is specific to the forces being used. It also apparently designed to scale up to bigger games.
Also being demoed was Mantic Games Dwarf Kings Hold, a new dungeon crawl game that uses their existing plastic Undead and Dwarves, although the version on display was a touch different than usual, using three ups for a giant sized game. The game itself uses a counter-based activation system. Dwarves get four counters a turn, the Undead start with three but only get one new one a turn. However, the Undead counters allow up to four skeletons to be activated at once. The effect is that the Dwarves generally have more options, but the Undead are better positioned to plan ahead, and have to use superior numbers to bring down the dwarves who hit harder. I have to say I was pretty terrible as the Undead, getting comprehensively smashed by my little brother, but it was an enjoyably straight forward and quick playing experience, unlike some dungeon crawl games I have played. I could see it as a good way to end a gaming session or fill in a bit of spare time.
I always like to watch the Doctor Who games that Crooked Dice put on. The rules are unofficial and so free to download with most of the miniatures being improvised or unofficial look alikes. Crooked dice's game mixed their own models with Heresy's and Haslefree's to create what would have been the most convaluted episodes ever, with Daleks, the Master, Autons and Gas Mask children taking on the Doctor, the Time Agents and Winston Churchill.
Meanwhile, at pride of place at the front of the hall the Daleks were invading the Tomb of the Cybermen, in a large scale participation game with custom rules and figures made from, sadly out of production, die cast figures.
UPDATE I have since been informed that the models are not out of production, not sure why I got the from.
The last game I wanted to talk about was Cthuleudo, half Call of Cthulhu and half Cluedo and entirely mad. Apparently highly involved, it evidently went on for hour and a half. Even though I didn't get to play, the board was packed with detail, both ranging from Chulhu statues to hidden Daleks.
So Salute is over for another year and hopefully the miniatures acquired will last until the next one. I have stacks of new plastic Saxons and Normans to paint, not to mention Dr Who, Helldorado and Infinity all of which will have time for at a later date.
Monday, 11 April 2011
Fairy Meat - a retrospective
As it has been two months since my HeroQuest retrospective I think it's time for another, although this one is less a look at an old favourite and more a look at a game I never quite got around to playing.
A much fun as the first book was, the real fun came with the first supplement, Clockwork Stomp. This introduced the Gnomes: Physically slow and lacking kill points (leaving them unable to fight hand to hand) Gnomes were rendered effective by their range of lethal hardware including the Torcheon (Flamethrower), Hand Cannon, Riddlegun and the legendary Chain Killer Auto Cannon. They could also be kitted out with bionic parts and be accompanied by cyborg clock fairies. And they were huge, more than twice the height of a fairy and considerably more bulky.
Kenzer and Co introduced the game with a promo comic strip in KODT that saw several of the regular characters playing the game. Having been a fanatical KODT fan for some time I snapped it up from my Friendly Local Game Shop along with the first batch of miniatures in spite of the expense. However, a lack of further support from the FLGS limited by options and the game languished for a while. was to pick it up again (from a different shop) after Kenzer released the excellent (and far better value) starter set which contained starter rules, two supplements (including Clockwork Stomp), the second batch of fairies and a bunch of extra counters.
My first Gnome was another quick buy from the FLGS, but my second and third came, oddly, from a holiday in Washington DC, where I scooped them out of the Bargain bin of a game shop in Georgetown for $10 a piece, reasoning, correctly that I would never get another opportunity.
Fairy Meat was produced by Kenzer & Co, a US company better known for their roleplaying products and probably best known for the long running RPG themed comic Knights of the Dinner Table. Fairy Meat represented a rare foray for them into wargaming. Written by Scott Leaton, it had one unique selling point: Fairy Meat was billed as a 1:1 scale wargame, that is to say the 'miniatures' were life size.
Themed around battling groups of fairies who would not only kill but eat one another to restore health, Fairy Meat had its tongue well and truly in its cheek from the front cover, depicting a classical fairy chewing on the arm of a rival (this particular fairy would suffer a number of grizzly fates on the covers of the subsequent supplement books). The tone continued with a byline that credited two fictional characters (from the KODT comic) and went on to list suggestions as to where to play the game ("A local forest preserve", "that filthy mess you call a bedroom") and where not to ("The middle of the road", "Prison(unless you're already there)"). Fairy Meat was not a game that could be taken very seriously.
The 32 page rulebook was printed in two tone colour with fairly cheap stapled binding, but it did come with a series of card inserts, including counters and record cards. It also included a set of cut out fairy stand ups and cardboard wings to stick to your existing miniatures, suggesting that Kenzer and Co did not initially intend to produce a range of miniatures of their own. The rules themselves contained a number of innovative ideas. Included using a deck of playing cards instead of dice and the idea that kill and life points (essentially attack and defence) doubled as wounds, with fairies converting each into 'meat' when injured, meaning that the fairy's fighting ability diminished as it was injured. It's most enjoyably quirky feature was the ability to regenerate life by eating other fairies. On death a fairy was replaced by their meat counters which could be collected and fought over by other fairies (friends or enemies).
The book was quickly followed by range of miniatures. The first batch of fairies were well enough sculpted and demonstrated a good range of the fairy weapons, but suffered from someone bland facial expressions and a lack of character. The second range of five were a substantial improvement with a quirky, cartoony appearance a range of gleeful facial expressions.
A much fun as the first book was, the real fun came with the first supplement, Clockwork Stomp. This introduced the Gnomes: Physically slow and lacking kill points (leaving them unable to fight hand to hand) Gnomes were rendered effective by their range of lethal hardware including the Torcheon (Flamethrower), Hand Cannon, Riddlegun and the legendary Chain Killer Auto Cannon. They could also be kitted out with bionic parts and be accompanied by cyborg clock fairies. And they were huge, more than twice the height of a fairy and considerably more bulky.In common with a number of Kenzer and Co products (and to be fair those of many small publishers) there was a sense that you were paying a lot for relatively low production values. The rulebooks 32 pages cost me £16.99, back in 2000, more than the Malifaux rulebook today. The miniatures also seemed expensive in their day, fairies were £3 each and the Gnomes a hefty £16.99. Having said that, the latter weigh a ton being almost solid metal and it is inconceivable that they would cost so little today. They did, however, suffer badly from flash and some truly horrible mould lines and I had to do considerable work with greenstuff to fill some conspicuous gaps.
Kenzer and Co introduced the game with a promo comic strip in KODT that saw several of the regular characters playing the game. Having been a fanatical KODT fan for some time I snapped it up from my Friendly Local Game Shop along with the first batch of miniatures in spite of the expense. However, a lack of further support from the FLGS limited by options and the game languished for a while. was to pick it up again (from a different shop) after Kenzer released the excellent (and far better value) starter set which contained starter rules, two supplements (including Clockwork Stomp), the second batch of fairies and a bunch of extra counters.
My first Gnome was another quick buy from the FLGS, but my second and third came, oddly, from a holiday in Washington DC, where I scooped them out of the Bargain bin of a game shop in Georgetown for $10 a piece, reasoning, correctly that I would never get another opportunity.Unfortunately, models have languished unpainted ever since on my "plan to do something with eventually" list. Well I finally got round to it, painting up seven fairies and two Gnomes (almost). It's long overdue, but hopefully I will soon get a chance to put a sadly overlooked and refreshingly quirky game to the test.
Sadly, Kenzer and Co have long since stopped producing the miniatures and getting hold of them can be tough, but the rules are still available in PDF form both directly from Kenzer and Co and from RPG now, so if anyone fancies converting some miniatures and having a go they still can.
Sadly, Kenzer and Co have long since stopped producing the miniatures and getting hold of them can be tough, but the rules are still available in PDF form both directly from Kenzer and Co and from RPG now, so if anyone fancies converting some miniatures and having a go they still can.Sunday, 3 April 2011
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.
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.
Monday, 28 March 2011
Conspicuous Consumption
My Salute tickets have arrived. For those who don't know, Salute is the South London Warlords gaming club's annual show and one of the biggest Wargaming events on the UK calendar. It might not have quite the size and attendance figures of Games Workshop's Games Day, but it more than compensates by the sheer number and range of traders. There are companies that do Salute and nothing else and miniatures that can only be bought at Salute or on the web.
I tend to schedule my miniature buying around shows. Despite my advocacy of the Internet as a means for wargaming companies to communicate and sell directly to their customers, I actually rarely buy any miniatures online. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but it may be that when confronted with a limitless range of miniatures and a credit card it is all too easy to go a bit crazy and spend far more than I can afford.
The shows are useful because they set a natural limit on what you can buy. Most traders don't accept credit cards, so it is easy to set a budget for yourself simply buy taking a limited amount of funds. Plus, you can only buy what the traders bring with them.
Consequently, I make most of my wargaming purchases at certain key points in the year and plan my collecting and gaming around them. There are four of five major events in the year when I accumulate a large volume of models.
In spite of these limits, I still seem to end up with more models than I can do anything with. Last year's Salute was all about Malifaux and the English Civil War. My Malifaux models (or at least the ones I bought last year) have been painted and used, but my ECW figures remain unpainted and unassembled. Not that I regret the purchase, I still fully intend to paint up my Royalists and get in a game. I simply have more models than I can paint of use.
This hobby supplies few opportunities for instant gratification. Unlike most Sport, our hobby requires considerable preperation and unlike other collections (such as stamps or action figures) the act of purchase is not the end of the endeavour. Once we have our miniatures we still have a great deal to do before we are ready to display or use them.
I didn't use to like painting. This was a combination of the amount of time it took and my lack of satisfaction with the results I achieved. This has changed a great deal, I now find it quite relaxing and satisfying, but it is still very time consuming and requires a good deal of effort.
This is also somewhat true of gaming. Although I enjoy the gaming experience, it takes a great deal of time to set up and put away and requires a good deal of concentration over a period of time. Sometimes the energy required to do it just isn't there.
Buying new miniatures is the closest to instant gratification we can get in this hobby. A new miniature of box of miniatures is full of possibility, detached from the requirements of time and effort needed to extract value from them. We can look a box and fool ourselves into thinking that beautifully painted display images are exactly what will come tumbling out of the box. Consequently we can easily accumulate more than we can use. I don't really need Salute, I still have plenty of projects to be getting on with and yet the acquisition is good part of the fun.
Is there a solution to this? Probably not. As much as I can tell myself that I need no new miniatures, but I still want them, I am still excited by them. There will still be a pile of unpainted and unassembled miniatures for some time to come.
I tend to schedule my miniature buying around shows. Despite my advocacy of the Internet as a means for wargaming companies to communicate and sell directly to their customers, I actually rarely buy any miniatures online. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but it may be that when confronted with a limitless range of miniatures and a credit card it is all too easy to go a bit crazy and spend far more than I can afford.
The shows are useful because they set a natural limit on what you can buy. Most traders don't accept credit cards, so it is easy to set a budget for yourself simply buy taking a limited amount of funds. Plus, you can only buy what the traders bring with them.
Consequently, I make most of my wargaming purchases at certain key points in the year and plan my collecting and gaming around them. There are four of five major events in the year when I accumulate a large volume of models.
In spite of these limits, I still seem to end up with more models than I can do anything with. Last year's Salute was all about Malifaux and the English Civil War. My Malifaux models (or at least the ones I bought last year) have been painted and used, but my ECW figures remain unpainted and unassembled. Not that I regret the purchase, I still fully intend to paint up my Royalists and get in a game. I simply have more models than I can paint of use.
This hobby supplies few opportunities for instant gratification. Unlike most Sport, our hobby requires considerable preperation and unlike other collections (such as stamps or action figures) the act of purchase is not the end of the endeavour. Once we have our miniatures we still have a great deal to do before we are ready to display or use them.
I didn't use to like painting. This was a combination of the amount of time it took and my lack of satisfaction with the results I achieved. This has changed a great deal, I now find it quite relaxing and satisfying, but it is still very time consuming and requires a good deal of effort.
This is also somewhat true of gaming. Although I enjoy the gaming experience, it takes a great deal of time to set up and put away and requires a good deal of concentration over a period of time. Sometimes the energy required to do it just isn't there.
Buying new miniatures is the closest to instant gratification we can get in this hobby. A new miniature of box of miniatures is full of possibility, detached from the requirements of time and effort needed to extract value from them. We can look a box and fool ourselves into thinking that beautifully painted display images are exactly what will come tumbling out of the box. Consequently we can easily accumulate more than we can use. I don't really need Salute, I still have plenty of projects to be getting on with and yet the acquisition is good part of the fun.
Is there a solution to this? Probably not. As much as I can tell myself that I need no new miniatures, but I still want them, I am still excited by them. There will still be a pile of unpainted and unassembled miniatures for some time to come.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
The Decline of the FLGS?
A thread started by GHQonline on the Miniature Page started me thinking about local games shops.
The "Friendly Local Games Shop" (FLGS) has long been seen as the hub of the gaming community. It is seen as a place where gamers can get together to talk about their hobby, share interests, promote new games and even play in the shops that provide gaming space. For that reason, they are looked on with much greater fondness than conventional shops.
The decline and even death of the FLGS has been a common discussion point in wargaming for some years now. In recent years, a good deal of the blame has been piled on heavy discounting online retailers. The argument being that these operations can afford to undercut FLGS because they don't have to cover the cost of running a "brick and mortar" shop. But such online operations are unable to provide the auxiliary services, game rooms and such, that a traditional FLGS does. The decline of the FLGS in favour of the online retailer is regarded as bad for the hobby as a whole.
It is fFor that reason that some companies provide incentives and support specifically for FLGS at the expense of online retailers. The recent spat between Battlefront and Maelstrom games was sparked by Battlefronts insistence that Malestrom could not offer the level of discount it did (a situation complicated by the fact that Malestrom runs a substantial brick and mortar operation).
However, the FLGS decline has been a theme in Wargaming since at least the 1990s (and possibly longer, my memory stretches back only so far), long before online retailing was any kind of issue. In UK this had a lot to do with Games Workshop who converted their general games stores into Games Workshop specific ones selling only Games Workshop products, before rapidly colonising the rest of the UK. As a consequence, almost every moderate sized town in the UK has a games shop, but the vast majority of these are Games Workshop, a sad development for those of us whose interests stretch a little wider.
The difficulty faced by the FLGS may have less to do with the challenge of online retailing and more to do with the difficulty making a profit of a niche industry in a competitive environment. A problem made all the more acute by the limited space most FLGS have to work with. It's all very well expecting gamers to support their FLGS, but that can be difficult if they don't offer the product you want. I buy almost all my Anima Tactics figures from one shop, but, for various reasons, they don't stock Malifaux, which means for those figures I have to go elsewhere. I can understand why they choose to prioritise those lines that sell best, but that doesn't help the customer wanting something else.
The thing is that there was a time when that would have been it. Either I find a FLGS that stocks the figures I want or I'm done and have to buy what's available. At least in the world of online retail, I can go elsewhere. Yes there are the shows and conventions which broaden out range of companies available, but strongly suspect these have grown in popularity since Internet made them so much easier to publicise.
It is now possible for small company, that can't sell to a FLGS, to go straight to the customer via the Internet. This is better for gamers who have a wider range of games and miniatures to choose from. Strangely, while the rise of the Internet has been bad for the small business when the small business is an FLGS, it has been a boon for small businesses that produce games and miniatures.
The FLGS still has a great deal to offer, and it would be a terrible shame to see them die out. But they have always struggled. I'm not convinced the Internet has been as harmful to them as is some times said, and if it has I still prefer the current state of the wargaming industry to the times before the Internet.
The "Friendly Local Games Shop" (FLGS) has long been seen as the hub of the gaming community. It is seen as a place where gamers can get together to talk about their hobby, share interests, promote new games and even play in the shops that provide gaming space. For that reason, they are looked on with much greater fondness than conventional shops.
The decline and even death of the FLGS has been a common discussion point in wargaming for some years now. In recent years, a good deal of the blame has been piled on heavy discounting online retailers. The argument being that these operations can afford to undercut FLGS because they don't have to cover the cost of running a "brick and mortar" shop. But such online operations are unable to provide the auxiliary services, game rooms and such, that a traditional FLGS does. The decline of the FLGS in favour of the online retailer is regarded as bad for the hobby as a whole.
It is fFor that reason that some companies provide incentives and support specifically for FLGS at the expense of online retailers. The recent spat between Battlefront and Maelstrom games was sparked by Battlefronts insistence that Malestrom could not offer the level of discount it did (a situation complicated by the fact that Malestrom runs a substantial brick and mortar operation).
However, the FLGS decline has been a theme in Wargaming since at least the 1990s (and possibly longer, my memory stretches back only so far), long before online retailing was any kind of issue. In UK this had a lot to do with Games Workshop who converted their general games stores into Games Workshop specific ones selling only Games Workshop products, before rapidly colonising the rest of the UK. As a consequence, almost every moderate sized town in the UK has a games shop, but the vast majority of these are Games Workshop, a sad development for those of us whose interests stretch a little wider.
The difficulty faced by the FLGS may have less to do with the challenge of online retailing and more to do with the difficulty making a profit of a niche industry in a competitive environment. A problem made all the more acute by the limited space most FLGS have to work with. It's all very well expecting gamers to support their FLGS, but that can be difficult if they don't offer the product you want. I buy almost all my Anima Tactics figures from one shop, but, for various reasons, they don't stock Malifaux, which means for those figures I have to go elsewhere. I can understand why they choose to prioritise those lines that sell best, but that doesn't help the customer wanting something else.
The thing is that there was a time when that would have been it. Either I find a FLGS that stocks the figures I want or I'm done and have to buy what's available. At least in the world of online retail, I can go elsewhere. Yes there are the shows and conventions which broaden out range of companies available, but strongly suspect these have grown in popularity since Internet made them so much easier to publicise.
It is now possible for small company, that can't sell to a FLGS, to go straight to the customer via the Internet. This is better for gamers who have a wider range of games and miniatures to choose from. Strangely, while the rise of the Internet has been bad for the small business when the small business is an FLGS, it has been a boon for small businesses that produce games and miniatures.
The FLGS still has a great deal to offer, and it would be a terrible shame to see them die out. But they have always struggled. I'm not convinced the Internet has been as harmful to them as is some times said, and if it has I still prefer the current state of the wargaming industry to the times before the Internet.
Saturday, 12 March 2011
Tipping the Scale
A while back I wrote a post in which I commented on the price and perceived value of Games Workshop's miniatures versus other company's. Eventually, I concluded that the price of a model was less important than it's value within a game. I have been trying to come up with a way to quantify this and rate various different games.
Today, I'm going to write about 'scalability.'
This can be defined as how easy it is to start and collect miniatures for a particular game, or how scalable it is. I will subdivide it into three areas:
1. How much does it cost to get enough bits (miniatures, rules, scenery) to play the game?
2. How much does it cost to add a new element to your army/ gang/ crew/ squad?
3. How big can the game get?
When I refer to cost, I don't just mean in purely financial terms, but also the time cost in collecting assembling and painting the necessary miniatures.
A game with good scalability allows you to start from nothing and expand your collection as far and as fast as you like.
The first element is the most straightforward - how much does it cost to start playing? How many models do you need and how much will you have to pay for them? As I have mentioned a few times before, Warhammer has high start up costs. You now have to spend over £60 on rulebooks, never mind the miniatures. Games Workshop has attempted to soften this with a high value starter set containing as many plastic models as can be sensibly squeezed between two sheets of cardboard. But this is of limited value if you don't plan to collect the armies included in the starter set. Mantic's Kings of War does a good job in reducing the cost of the models, but still scores quite low in this area because of the amount of time you have to spend painting them.
In contrast, skirmish games like Malifaux, Helldorado, Anima Tactics or Infinity can be played with as few as two or three models and a decent sized force may be no more than half a dozen. Anima and Infinity have expensive rule books, but both compensate with free downloadable startup rules (which actually cut out very little of the detail in the main books). So, while individual metal miniatures may be a lot pricier than plastics, you need very few to play the game and can devote more time and effort to making each one look that bit better.
Warmachine and Hordes, although based on larger armies than the skirmish games, make good use of starter sets and quick start rules to draw players in. It is at least possible to play a game with the contents of two starter sets, even if these games are a bit limited in tactical options.
My second criteria is slightly harder to explain, but in essence it's about how much it costs to add a new element to your army or force. By an element I mean the basic number of models that has to be added to an army to make it viable. In Anima Tactics or Malifaux that will usually be a single figure, but in Warhammer you need a whole unit. Anima Tactics and Malifaux miniatures cost a lot, but each one operates as a separate individual within the game, in contrast Warhammer and Kings of War use models in groups.
What this means is that although Games Workshop and Mantic's models are comparatively cheap, you need to buy them in large numbers. For Warhammer you now need two or three boxes , costing £30 - £45. For Anima, you can have a miniature for £8 and have it assembled, painted and on the gaming table the next day. So although the cost of a Warhammer miniature is lower, so is its value in the game. This means that Anima scores higher on criteria 2 than Warhammer.
Warmachine and Hordes sit somewhere in between. They sell units in boxes, which means one box usually gets you one unit, but the boxes are often very expensive at £30 or more (though the UK does seem to suffer due to the exchange rate here).
My final criteria is how big a game can get. How well does it support large armies? Or at what point does it become pointless to buy any more models? This is where the Games Workshop games, and Kings of War score highly. Games can get very big, very easily without becoming unweildy and Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 even have rules specifically to support extra big games.
Most skirmish games start to become unweildy when they get beyond twenty or thirty models, creating a natural cap in your collection where models can only be swapped not added to your force.
So skirmish games tend to score well for criteria 1 and 2, while mass battle Warhammer scores better for 3. Warmachine and Hordes score moderately well on 1 and 3, but not so well for 2 and sit as something as a compromise.
Companies have tried several ways to address the scalability problem. One approach is to produce 2 or more games to cover different scales of conflict. Games Workshop have tried it with the Lord of the Rings strategy battle game and War of the Ring and the late Rackham, famously, had Confrontation and Ragnarok. The idea is that you start with the skirmish game and, as your collection grows, you naturally progress to mass battles.
The problem with this approach, is that skirmish games tend to require only 1 or 2 of any individual miniature, while mass battle games require units, usually of at least five, if not ten or twenty. This means that the progression is rarely natural. Looking at Lord of the Rings, 1 or 2 plastic boxes is likely to give you as many of one particular trooper as your likely to need for the strategy battle game, but for War of the Rings 4 - 6 is more realistic. Meaning that you will probably have to double the size of your collection to make it viable for War of the Ring. This is simply not a natural progression.
So, what is my point here? Well essentially, creating wargame rules is a compromise and creating a game that scales well is very difficult. Games Workshop plays to its strengths by pushing bigger and bigger armies, while the skirmish games listed above are newer and benefit from a pool of players who still have plenty of models to get before they exhaust the possibilities of the smaller scale. In the end, perfect scalability may be impossible and it a company has to make the most of the rules they have.
Today, I'm going to write about 'scalability.'
This can be defined as how easy it is to start and collect miniatures for a particular game, or how scalable it is. I will subdivide it into three areas:
1. How much does it cost to get enough bits (miniatures, rules, scenery) to play the game?
2. How much does it cost to add a new element to your army/ gang/ crew/ squad?
3. How big can the game get?
When I refer to cost, I don't just mean in purely financial terms, but also the time cost in collecting assembling and painting the necessary miniatures.
A game with good scalability allows you to start from nothing and expand your collection as far and as fast as you like.
The first element is the most straightforward - how much does it cost to start playing? How many models do you need and how much will you have to pay for them? As I have mentioned a few times before, Warhammer has high start up costs. You now have to spend over £60 on rulebooks, never mind the miniatures. Games Workshop has attempted to soften this with a high value starter set containing as many plastic models as can be sensibly squeezed between two sheets of cardboard. But this is of limited value if you don't plan to collect the armies included in the starter set. Mantic's Kings of War does a good job in reducing the cost of the models, but still scores quite low in this area because of the amount of time you have to spend painting them.
In contrast, skirmish games like Malifaux, Helldorado, Anima Tactics or Infinity can be played with as few as two or three models and a decent sized force may be no more than half a dozen. Anima and Infinity have expensive rule books, but both compensate with free downloadable startup rules (which actually cut out very little of the detail in the main books). So, while individual metal miniatures may be a lot pricier than plastics, you need very few to play the game and can devote more time and effort to making each one look that bit better.
Warmachine and Hordes, although based on larger armies than the skirmish games, make good use of starter sets and quick start rules to draw players in. It is at least possible to play a game with the contents of two starter sets, even if these games are a bit limited in tactical options.
My second criteria is slightly harder to explain, but in essence it's about how much it costs to add a new element to your army or force. By an element I mean the basic number of models that has to be added to an army to make it viable. In Anima Tactics or Malifaux that will usually be a single figure, but in Warhammer you need a whole unit. Anima Tactics and Malifaux miniatures cost a lot, but each one operates as a separate individual within the game, in contrast Warhammer and Kings of War use models in groups.
What this means is that although Games Workshop and Mantic's models are comparatively cheap, you need to buy them in large numbers. For Warhammer you now need two or three boxes , costing £30 - £45. For Anima, you can have a miniature for £8 and have it assembled, painted and on the gaming table the next day. So although the cost of a Warhammer miniature is lower, so is its value in the game. This means that Anima scores higher on criteria 2 than Warhammer.
Warmachine and Hordes sit somewhere in between. They sell units in boxes, which means one box usually gets you one unit, but the boxes are often very expensive at £30 or more (though the UK does seem to suffer due to the exchange rate here).
My final criteria is how big a game can get. How well does it support large armies? Or at what point does it become pointless to buy any more models? This is where the Games Workshop games, and Kings of War score highly. Games can get very big, very easily without becoming unweildy and Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 even have rules specifically to support extra big games.
Most skirmish games start to become unweildy when they get beyond twenty or thirty models, creating a natural cap in your collection where models can only be swapped not added to your force.
So skirmish games tend to score well for criteria 1 and 2, while mass battle Warhammer scores better for 3. Warmachine and Hordes score moderately well on 1 and 3, but not so well for 2 and sit as something as a compromise.
Companies have tried several ways to address the scalability problem. One approach is to produce 2 or more games to cover different scales of conflict. Games Workshop have tried it with the Lord of the Rings strategy battle game and War of the Ring and the late Rackham, famously, had Confrontation and Ragnarok. The idea is that you start with the skirmish game and, as your collection grows, you naturally progress to mass battles.
The problem with this approach, is that skirmish games tend to require only 1 or 2 of any individual miniature, while mass battle games require units, usually of at least five, if not ten or twenty. This means that the progression is rarely natural. Looking at Lord of the Rings, 1 or 2 plastic boxes is likely to give you as many of one particular trooper as your likely to need for the strategy battle game, but for War of the Rings 4 - 6 is more realistic. Meaning that you will probably have to double the size of your collection to make it viable for War of the Ring. This is simply not a natural progression.
So, what is my point here? Well essentially, creating wargame rules is a compromise and creating a game that scales well is very difficult. Games Workshop plays to its strengths by pushing bigger and bigger armies, while the skirmish games listed above are newer and benefit from a pool of players who still have plenty of models to get before they exhaust the possibilities of the smaller scale. In the end, perfect scalability may be impossible and it a company has to make the most of the rules they have.
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