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    • 2007 Year in Review

    Editorial

    written by TGN head geek Zac Belado

    It’s been a busy year. So busy in fact that the month by month examination of the high points of the year that I did for 2006 isn’t really a possibility this year. Not only are there some local matters that have dramatically cut into my free time, but we posted probably four times the amount of news in 2007 than we did in 2006 making the task a lot more difficult.

    Instead I thought that it might be interesting to take a look at, and discuss, some of the more interesting developments of 2007 and look at their impact and how they may effect the future of our hobby.

    Board games with minis
    One of the more interesting developments this year is the number of board game manufacturers that have either released games with miniatures or released games that use tabletop mechanics without miniatures. Fantasy Flight Games and Days of Wonder have both released board games that include figures one could easily use for tabletop gaming. Tide of Iron has some very nice looking 18mm scale infantry and vehicles, the BattleLore board game included quite a few good looking 18mm scale human, goblin and dwarf figures and Tannhäuser from French company Take on You contains a set of figures that I am already using for my Weird WWII pulp games.

    Asmodee US is also in the midst of finishing production of a sci-fi game, Frontiers, that is a hybrid board game and miniature game that uses cardboard cutout miniatures, a measuring tape and a mapsheet. It seems as if the tabletop gaming demographic is large enough that other companies are aiming to get a piece of it by producing games with similar features to tabletop games but either without the miniatures or without miniatures that you will feel compelled to paint. And they are being marketed directly to tabletop gamers as a type of miniature game or hybrid miniature games. Or perhaps the vast market of gamers that was built up by GW in the 80s and 90s is now at a peak of its buying power and other companies are looking to get a bit of that cash by producing games that appeal to them more than more traditional board games.

    This isn’t anything new but what is interesting is that this is starting to encroach on traditional tabletop gaming genres and also producing figures that one could actually use in tabletop games. The BattleLore minis paint up reasonably well and almost look as if they could be used with the old Demonworld range of fantasy figures and, as mentioned, I have already started using the Tannhäuser figures in my Weird WWII gaming. One odd wrinkle on this is that the company know for its miniatures, GW, recently re-released a board game known for its miniatures, Talisman, without any of the figures that were released for the game originally and effectively killed most interest in the game amongst people I know.

    I think that if games like Frontiers and Tannhäuser take off then we will see more of these hybrids entering the market. Mostly from established companies like Fantasy Flight Games and Asmodee.

    The rise of pulp gaming
    If any one facet of the hobby took off this year it was pulp gaming. Lead by Rattrap Productions there are a large number of different pulp rulesets available allowing you to not only game in traditional pulp genres but also sci-fi, horror, weird science as well as “cinematic” historical rulesets for Musketeers and Pirates. Miniature manufacturers like Brigade Games, Black Scorpion, Bronze Age Miniatures and newcomers Killer B Games and Hydra Miniatures are creating waves of new figures to slot into those games as well.

    And then their is the Weird War genre that is near and dear to this writer’s heart. Taking equal parts of horror, weird science, occult and military gaming and brewing it all together into a dark and wicked concoction. Rattrap Productions, as you would expect, already cater to this genre with their Amazing War Stories supplement for .45 Adventure and Darkson Designs and West Wind Productions are both at work on darker Weird War games that scale up the action from the small-scale adventures that Amazing War Stories serves.

    And if that wasn’t enough, Reaper Miniatures is also at work on a more horror/zombie oriented Weird War game with prepainted and metal miniatures.

    And if you include Tannhäuser in the category, well you get the idea.

    I think part of the appeal of Pulp gaming is that you are never tied down to one rule system or one miniature manufacturer. And that often miniatures from one genre can easily be slotted into another game with little difficulty. Are those bandits from a Back of Beyond game or are they irregular troops from a Russian Civil War scenario? My own Weird War collection includes figures from Artizan Designs, East Riding Miniatures, Copplestone Castings, Pulp Figures, West Wind Productions, Darkson Designs, Northstar Figures and Take On You’s Tannhäuser figures. And that doesn’t even count the Games Workshop and AT-43 minis I have repurposed. And from that collection I can easily move from horror, WWII and even generic pulp gaming without having to get new figures.

    For a gamer it’s a ideal genre to game in and a very flexible use of resources and I think that as more gamers realise this that this meta genre of gaming will continue to expand. The games also, in general, tend to require fewer miniatures and I think many gamers are more open to trying new rules and genres when they don’t require a large outlay of figures.

    Whatever the reasons, I think that in 2008 we will see more game and miniatures releases in this meta-genre.

    Update: Richard Johnson at Rattrap Productions has posted his own comments on why he has focused on small scale gaming for his game releases.

    40K Apocalypse
    A few years ago people were talking about the decline of 40K and GW appears to have swung the pendulum in the opposite direction with the release of their new Warhammer 40K Apocalypse rules. Although calling them rules might be misleading. They seem to be almost “anti-rules” in that they break or invite players to break many of the existing army building rules from 40K. In fact the games I have seen all seem to be of the “bring and battle” sort where players bring 500 points of troops to a shop or gaming club and have at it.

    Most of the evidence I have seen for the popularity of Apocalypse has been anecdotal. Some store owners I have talked with or read online posts from have discussed the increase in 40K sales, the return of older 40K gamers and a general increase in people coming to stores to play Apocalypse and 40K.

    I think that there were three primary goals for Apocalypse

    1. Bring back older gamers and gamers that are disenchanted with the tournament scene and heavily competitive gaming
    2. Sell boatloads of 40K kits
    3. Reinvigorate the game and get people playing again

    I think that they have succeeded with the first and third goals. The next set of sales figures from Games Workshop will tell us about the success of the second goal. The main issues I think that arise from Apocalypse are the ability of GW to retain these “new” gamers and this new momentum and what this says about the 40K army building system.

    Games Workshop have a problem retaining their customers. Well that’s not entirely accurate. They seem to have a loyal audience of Warhammer Fantasy Gamers who stay in that game for years and years. My suspicion though is that the number of WFB gamers is probably a fifth of the number of 40K gamers at least in terms of sales. For quite some time the management at GW appear to have been focused on burning through as many teenage 40K gamers as possible to keep their sales figures afloat without any thought given to long term planning to retain and grow those gamers.

    Apocalypse appears to be a response to that and also an attempt to address one of the reasons why some of those core gamers left. Simply because they didn’t find the game fun anymore. Despite their best efforts the 40K army building system tends to lend itself to abuse by power gamers in a way that can quickly suck the life out of the game. The answer? Remove or abstract the point system and create a army building system that is universally unbalanced or universally generic. It’s worked with Warmachine and Hordes, it’s worked with AT-43 . So why not 40K?

    It’s interesting that Games Workshop’s response to the problem with 40K hasn’t been to provide a more complex ruleset but instead to create a ruleset that is even simpler in most respects than its previous product. No skirmish rules, no advanced system with more complex line of sight and combat rules. Instead, a system where everyone brings a big box of minis and makes them all blow up.

    I don’t mean to have that sound as dismissive as it probably comes across. It appears that for most fans Apocalypse has been a success. And for GW it appears that it may have created a demand for more expensive boxed sets that may give a boost to their sales numbers. In the long term the issue is whether this will create an upturn not only in 40K gaming in general but will it bring more people in to the game. I think that sadly the answer to both of those questions is no. I don’t know that Apocalypse has legs. And I don’t know that GW has plans to move these gamers to anything new either in terms of 40K or other games.

    Oh, that’s right, they don’t have any other games do they?

    Apocalypse screams out as a way to transition gamers from large scale 40K games to a game like Epic: Armageddon. But GW doesn’t appear to support the game… or any of their other Specialist Games range. This used to be the great power of GW. They could bring you into the “GW Hobby” with any number of games and then allow you to transition to other gaming experiences. And this is where GW now has problems with Apocalypse. If gamers want to get a different type of game then GW has nothing to offer them and those gamers now have other choices from other companies. Apocalypse has the potential to be another sales bubble. Not anywhere near as large as the one that occurred with Lord of the Rings but I suspect that unless GW unveils some sort of extended plans to retain the gamers they have picked up with Apocalypse that they may again drift off to other products.

    Metal prices continue to rise
    For a hobby that revolves around the use of “lead soldiers” the continuing price increases in tin and other metals is a worrying trend. In the last year the price of tin, the main component of pewter, has doubled. Almost all metal miniature manufacturers have increased their prices in the last year and all with the same comments regarding the dramatic rise in metal prices since their last metal purchases.

    No-one sees these prices declining or even slowing down and so we can all look forward to even higher prices for metal sculpts. Some companies saw this coming. Games Workshop started plans long ago to move most of their miniatures to injection moulded plastics. Previously GW had core troops in plastic with other specialist or character models as metal sculpts. Now even the core character models for GW’s games are plastic kits and some of the 40K and Warhammer armies are close to being entirely plastic kits. GW may have done this as a way to increase their own profitability, but in any case it has made those games and figures less susceptible to increases due to metal prices.

    Many gamers may never really notice this trend. If you are a skirmish gamer or a fan of 1/72nd scale plastics then you probably may have never noticed the price of metal has been going straight up for the last five years. But the rest of us have noticed these increases and it’s inevitable that the increasing price of tin, and other metals, will continue to have impacts on our hobby. We may be buying less figures, some manufactures may fold or have to merge with other companies. And one obvious impact is the rise in plastics and prepainted figures.

    One other obvious conclusion is also that gamers will start to cut down on their purchases. This is obviously going to impact on smaller manufactures and those that still produce pewter figures for large scale games that require more than 100 minis. If prices continue to increase it is going to be a large impediment to people that are looking at getting into a game, like Warhammer Ancients, that require 100+ 28mm scale pewter figures. It would not surprise me to see companies that sell 28mm historical to start looking for or creating skirmish rules to help continue to generate a market for their products in light of what can only be more increases in the price of metal.

    Plastics and prepainted miniatures
    2007 was the year that plastics began to have a major impact across the hobby. And not only plastic miniatures but also prepainted plastic miniatures. Manufacturing changes in China have made it inexpensive enough for even smaller firms to produce plastic figures. These are a different type of plastic than GW’s injection plastic models and so perhaps this is the difference that makes these miniatures less expensive to make. Whatever the reason, companies such as Perry Brothers, Kraken Editions, Rackham, Reaper, Mongoose Publishing and others have released or announced plastic or prepainted plastic figures.

    Now prepainted plastic figures are nothing new. Wizards of the Coast has been producing them for ages in its D&D and Star Wars Miniatures ranges. In fact the recent increase in the number of new manufacturers producing may be attributed not only to the success of these ranges but also to the development of factories and manufacturing processes in China to produce them. I certainly am a big fan of the Star War Miniatures and Starship Battles ranges with huge collections of both. Oddly I use Mongoose Publishing rules to game with them. Something we will come back to later.

    Plastic minis are nothing new. Companies like Italari, Revel, Armies in Plastic, HaT and other have been producing plastic figures in varying scales and genres for years. These have almost always been for historical gaming with a focus on Ancients and WWII. We are now seeing more plastic production for fantasy and sci-fi gaming as well. Caesar Miniatures are releasing 1/72nd scale fantasy figures such as Dwarves and Orcs and I would not be surprised to see some of the standard historical plastic manufacturers start to release fantasy and sci-fi plastics in the future.

    Metal prices are definitely a cause for the rise in plastic production amongst traditional tabletop gaming companies. The new Perry American Civil War figures, made I am lead to believe of the same hard plastic as GW figures, are being developed specifically to address the cost of doing mass ACW battles with metal figures. GW realised this some years ago when it moved their core troop choices to metal. What is really new here is that some companies have decided to not only move into plastics but take it a step further and produce miniatures that are prepainted as well. If the Perry Brothers are producing ACW plastics then it doesn’t seem a reach to think that a company like Gripping Beast or another historical manufacturer may follow suit.

    Time constraints may be an issue, it takes time to paint an entire army, but prepaints may be a competitive edge that companies are looking for to launch a game. There are far more games available now than there were ten years ago and if you are competing to take gamers away from existing products like 40K and Warmachine then you need an edge. Prepaints may be seen to be that advantage.

    The idea of prepainted figures is fairly divisive in the hobby. The split being specifically along the gamer/miniature enthusiast divide. Many gamers like the idea of having a game that can be played without any work. Miniature fans and painters look at these plastic prepaints as being poorer sculpts and poorer reproductions than metal figures. And to be honest both camps are right. These plastic figures are typically of a softer material than used in other plastic miniatures like GW’s Space Marines and WFB troops and so they suffer from a lack of sharp detail and often from flaccid weapons. So if you are a painter or a fan of miniatures in general then you probably aren’t interested in these new releases and odds are you aren’t the target market for them anyway. If you are, first and foremost, a gamer then these are probably the perfect excuse to get involved in a new game.

    Rackham’s AT-43 is a great example of this. You buy a unit box, you buy the accompanying specialist figures pack and dump them on a table and start playing. No painting, no assembly and if you don’t have an issue with the excessive packaging of the mass market product displays then it is a painless way to start a new game. While AT-43 may not have been well received in Europe it has been a very big hit in North America and there is no denying the appeal of being able to field a fully painted army of miniatures with no painting is a great draw. I know that I would not be playing AT-43 if it was released as a series of unpainted metal figures. I think that Rackham has been able to produce a series of very acceptable gaming figures (more than acceptable if you look at the frequency in which the AT-43 Red Blok vehicles are showing up as Pulp gaming figures) and also produced a fairly interesting game to go along with it.

    However, not everyone has been as successful with their prepainted miniature releases.

    The collapse of Battlefield Evolution and Starship Troopers
    Mongoose Publishing made a fairly big splash with the announcement of a new prepainted mass market tabletop miniatures game called Battlefield Evolution. The game was based on a fairly popular computer first person shooter, whether Mongoose admits this or not, with factions for the Americans, Europeans, Chinese and an undefined Middle Eastern faction. Battlefield Evolution was to be the first game in a series of prepainted plastic games with the next being a reworking of the Starship Troopers game.

    Battlefield Evolution was effectively stillborn. Initial photos of the first wave of miniatures appear to have been painting masters and the photos of the actual production figures were a far cry from those initial pictures. Mongoose Publishing head Matt Sprange then publicly commented that the figures weren’t going to be made available for sale since they didn’t match the original masters. Matt then had to basically eat those words since, of course, the figures were already on their way to distributors. Forum posts were deleted, fans were outraged and the photos of the original masters were removed from the Mongoose Publishing website.

    Not an auspicious start.

    Once the figures made their way to retailers it was then apparent that the figures were not 28mm scale. Whether this was actually made clear by Mongoose was up in the air, I certainly always thought that they were 28mm scale, but yet another nail was driven into the coffin of the game. The camo schemes on the figures were actually not bad but the odd scale, the disturbing “bug eyed” paint job of the faces and the lack of detail on vehicles that were the same price, or more, than diecast metal vehicles of the same size made the game unsellable. Most retailers I know didn’t get much in and most of it is still sitting on shelves waiting to sell.

    Needless to say this killed any plans for a prepainted version of the Starship Troopers game. It also killed any plans for further waves of releases and Battlefield Evolution is now, for all intents and purposes, dead.

    This is a shame in some respects because I actually rather like the Battlefield Evolution rules. I have a set of stats for the Star Wars Miniatures figures for use with the game and I also have a set of stats and variant rules for using the Starship Battles figures with Mongoose’s A Call to Arms sci-fi ruleset. They are actually fun rules to play but I always hoped that Mongoose would stop producing miniatures and instead concentrate on producing generic rulesets and then work with other manufacturers to create official expansions for their figures. I’d be first in line to buy an official expansion for ACTA that worked with WotC’s Starship Battles minis or even a variant of the Battlefield Evolution rules for use with the Star Wars Miniatures figures. They already do this with their Victory at Sea WWII naval rules and are working on a series of generic WWII rules based on Battlefield Evolution. I think more of this and less miniature releases would be a good idea. A generic set of sci-fi rules based on Battlefield Evolution with some sort of point generation system would also be a godsend in my opinion.

    My suspicion is that Matt and the folks at Mongoose were promised one level of quality and were delivered quite another and found themselves in the rather unenviable position of having to put on a happy face to try and sell something that they thought was crap. Mongoose is still trying to spin this entire debacle and make it sound as if there will be bigger and better plans for the future of both games but I would be surprised if we ever saw another release for either of these games. The lesson here is that you need to check the results of your Far East manufacturing plants to guarantee that what you are sold is what you want to sell to others. Hopefully this is a lesson that other companies can learn from.

    Confrontation goes plastic
    Now as much as I like AT-43 and think it’s a great game and a great set of miniatures, I am less than thrilled with how Rackham has handled their plans to move the existing Confrontation game to a plastic prepainted system like AT-43. There is no reason to believe that Rackham won’t produce the same excellent gameplay and figures that they have for AT-43, but the main problem is that in the case of Confrontation they have an existing base of gamers who they have to deal with and it is in this respect that Rackham have fallen down.

    Now I have previously been on the record as saying that I am personally miffed at Rackham for not providing me a way to move to this new game with my existing metal figures but that I understood the reasons for this. Basically, the fans of the metal figs and the older versions of Confrontation were not producing sales in enough volume to make the company happy. Confrontation was selling but not enough to keep Rackham growing and it was unavoidable that they would have to dump their existing fanbase to find a new one. I was wrong.

    I think the core issue isn’t that Rackham wasn’t making enough money but that they blew an opportunity to sell the game to English speaking gamers. Prior to the release of Warmachine there were no skirmish scale fantasy miniature games on the market that was able to appeal to disenchanted GW gamers looking for a more strategic game.

    Rackham certainly had the miniatures to draw in gamers but the lack of an official English version and a game printed in a series of small books with miniscule print effectively limited the market to hardcore fans of the figures. Once Rackham finally addressed the issues with an better version of the game in a proper book with a better English translation they had to compete with Warmachine and then Hordes. The Dogs of War expansion that came out for Confrontation version 3 was lost in the flurry around the release of Hordes. If Warmachine dug Confrontation’s grave then it was Hordes that pushed it over the edge and started shoveling in the dirt. Confrontation didn’t sell but it was really because Rackham didn’t take the initiative to capture a market that was there for the taking.

    Which makes me rather annoyed that after buying several Confrontation armies I, and many other Confrontation gamers, were tossed to the curb. My Griffin Confrontation force is the largest of the Confrontation armies that I own and with the exception of the special characters I don’t own enough miniatures to make a single unit in the new game. I can still use my metal miniatures in the new game but I am not aware of a single local Confrontation gamer that purchased the metal miniatures in the numbers needed to play the new game. I can certainly still play using the old rules, a set I actually like a lot, using my old minis but lets be honest. If people like me were playing Confrontation on a regular basis instead of Hordes or Warmachine then Rackham probably wouldn’t have to rework the game to turn it into a fantasy version of AT-43.

    Rackham has also been hoisted on its own petard with its past decision to go public. It needed the money to produce AT-43 but now it has to feed those shareholders and they can’t do it with the money they were making from Confrontation. Those sales may have been enough for a private company, but a public firm is obligated to try to maximise their shareholders value and so plans were made to try to refashion Confrontation into a more profit heavy vehicle. So the metal miniatures and the old rules were scrapped and the mass market plastic prepainted game was unveiled. Sadly AT-43 didn’t pick up in Europe as well as it did in North America, there were supply issues with the game that cut into sales and, I am assuming, Confrontation sales died as soon as word of the plastic prepainted figures and new game were made public.

    Rackham is now in a form of French bankruptcy protection while they work on a plan to refinance their debt and I certainly hope that they do if only so I can see what the next phase of AT-43 releases will be. I have an odd relationship with Rackham. I love AT-43 and hope that they continue to release new figures and expand the game, but I also feel that they have really endangered the release of Confrontation by shutting out long time fans of the game. If gamers like myself aren’t at our local FLGS playing the new system (with or without the new plastic figs) as we are with AT-43 then who is going to be playing this game?

    2008. The year of the …?
    I’m notoriously bad at predictions but I hope that I am not too bad at making forecasts. So here are some things that I think we will see in 2008

    The continuing development of small scale gaming
    Metal prices and a general expansion of the market are going to bring more gamers into skirmish or small scale gaming (games that use a small number of figures ranging from 5 to 30). This movement is going to be helped along by increasing price of metal but also, I think, by gamers realising that they can have a fun gaming experience with a small number of figures and have more money in their pockets at the end of the day. Are gamers going to spend $300 or 400 for a metal army (or even a plastic one) or $100 for a skirmish system and some figures? Skirmish games also are easier to bring in new gamers. The low entry costs remove the primary objection many gamers have to starting up a new game. The increased number of Pulp games on and coming into the market will also help to promote this area of gaming. Warhammer Historical’s western and upcoming Pirate games will prove to be popular and I also foresee a big increase in sales for Rattrap Productions as their range of available game systems and expansions will start to hit a critical mass and provide a core system for gamers to play almost any type of game.

    Prepaints do not equal mass market
    Battlefield Evolution and AT-43 are games that are ultimately aimed at a mass market. Mongoose Publishing and Rackham apparently aimed at having these games not only in your friendly local game store but also in larger stores like Toys R’ Us and Wal Mart. This doesn’t appear to have happened and may be part of the reason not only why Battlefield Evolution was pulled from the market but also why Rackham has run into financial troubles. Perhaps the retail landscape is different in Canada where I live than it is in the US but here even games like Heroclix and Star Wars Miniatures have problems trying to make it into mass market stores (Editor’s Note: Zac has never set foot into a Wal Mart so he has no clue what they sell there) so it seems unlikely that a game from a company with less distributing and marketing muscle that WotC and WizKids aren’t going to break into that market as well. Perhaps Rackham’s deal with Fantasy Flight Games may provide them with some added clout in this regard but I foresee that any future prepainted miniature games may be sold in a more traditional format and not in the mass market packaging that Battlefield Evolution and AT-43 use.

    Online retailing hits a wall
    Well at least in the US. A recent US Supreme Court case upheld the right of manufacturers to enforce MSRP pricing on online retailers. I think it will not be long before we see Games Workshop and other large US manufacturers start to enforce standard pricing on online retailers. And it is difficult to see how many will continue without the competitive advantage of lower prices. Some online retailers have been expanding their products to include far more than just GW miniatures and so they may not see much of an impact but retailers that have been using the Internet to soak off high profit GW sales may end up closing.

    GW continues to flounder
    Now let me preface this by saying that I have no idea what plans Games Workshop have for the 40K game post Apocalypse. This isn’t a good sign though. I have my monthly subscription to White Dwarf (I read it for the articles), I read their website, I pop in to 40K fan forums from time to time and in my free time I run a gaming news website. I should know what GW has in store for 40K gamers after Apocalypse.

    I don’t intend to write negative commentary about the company but it’s often difficult not to. Apocalypse has been widely seen as a success for the company but the malaise that GW is in will not be solved by a single profitable quarter brought about by people buying kits for Apocalypse. And in some respects that is the companies problem, a lack of vision and a lack of ability to look beyond their quarterly sales numbers. The company needs to build a long term plan to build not the company back to profitability but to bring its “hobby” back to a healthy state. Apocalypse may have bought them the time and the goodwill of the gaming community to do so but GW needs leadership with a long-term plan and an idea of what their core audience needs.

    Mongoose has a hit on their hands
    Victory at Sea has been a moderate hit for Mongoose Publishing and I think that their WWII ruleset will be a bigger hit for them. For all the heat that Mongoose take for some of their miniature releases they generally put out fun rules. Battlefield Evolution may have had some poor figures but it’s a fun set of rules that have spawned any number of fan mods and expansions. I’ve already commented on the fact that this is an area where I would like them to focus and I think that if popular and profitable that these upcoming WWII rules will be the first is a series of rules only releases from Mongoose. Mongoose is a fairly profitable publishing company with some good writers and in an ideal world they will team up with miniature companies in a similar fashion that Two Hour Wargames has done with their 5150 ruleset. But before that, I think that a WWII ruleset from them will do well and I’m looking forward to seeing it. If only to start writing a Weird War expansion for it :-)

    Companies or games mentioned in this article

    This entry was posted on Sunday, December 23rd, 2007 and is filed under Editorial.

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    38 Responses to “2007 Year in Review”


    Keirof says:
    December 17th, 2007 at 4:07 pm

    Zac,

    I enjoyed this very much, and I appreciate the work that you put into it. I think you’re right about the growth in skirmish gaming for 2008, and I think it’s goin’ to be WW2 skirmish gaming, and 40mm skirmish gaming will grow in that period and in others. I’m not being critical, but next year you might address the strange change in scales to 40mm, which is seemingly happening across the board.

    I’m intrigued you think GB will go into plastics. Is there any hint from them they will?

    I noted the Perry’s post today on TMP where they referenced the problems with mail in plastic and (I think) stated that their secret list of forthcoming projects in plastic had none (no mail figures, that is). I think they are going Franco-Prussian next, and they’ll do the 1815 English in plastic as well. OMG, I can’t wait.

    Anyways, thanks, this is I think your strength, informed opinion, and it’s too bad the vidcasts can’t continue.

    Cheers
    Zac says:
    December 17th, 2007 at 4:45 pm

    I have no clues and I have actually rewritten the article to read “a company like Gripping Beast” as I don’t want tot give the impression that I have some inside knowledge about anyone’s plans :-)

    There are a lot of people doing 40mm gaming and manufacturing and I think it will continue but it wasn’t that big of a trend this year so we’ll have to see what happens in that area next year.

    Glad you like the article.
    P-ko says:
    December 17th, 2007 at 5:08 pm

    as to why AT-43 didn’t have such good start in europe, maybe it’s because of a rather “intresting” pricing practice of rackham,to make the sets cost the same in each currency.30$ for 6 painted minis is still sensible enough. 30Euro for same minis is over the impulse buy level(as far as i’m concerned).

    other than that, i do enjoy that kind of articles,especially the predictions part, it’s fun to go back at the end of the year and see what did and what did not go as predicted:)(more often than not it differs,wildly sometimes,but that’s part of the game;D)
    Zac says:
    December 17th, 2007 at 6:19 pm

    I left my mad “GW price decrease” prediction off of the list
    Bob says:
    December 17th, 2007 at 7:43 pm

    I think 40mm skirmish in WW2 is a long-shot. The range compression is pretty bad in 15mm and 1/72 skirmish–it is just dumb in 40mm and up. One of our club member is talking 54mm WW2 skirmish but I think he hasn’t thought through the terrain issue as well as the limits of what one can reach on a table.

    That said, Zac’s argument about prices giving skirmish new life seems pretty well thought out. Metal prices are rising and that augurs for smaller armies. I wonder if the new Fields of Glory (knowing nothing about it) will have small DBA like armies that are pretty cheap to make.
    Osbad says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 1:26 am

    Generally speaking I agree with Zac’s conclusions. One thing that will possibly impact next year I don’t see mention of (unless I missed it) is the possible/probably slow down in the European and North American economies. Here in the UK we have been seeing stories about sales of toys being 6% below last years, and poor results on the High Street. Whether this has impacted on the more “impulse buy” end of the wargaming market is too early to say, but a period of decreasing demand is a hard environment for companies such as Rackham, Mongoose and GW to thrive in, and mistakes are costly.

    Overall, my main beef with the (relative) big boys in the gaming “industry” is the relative high prices charged for what appear to be low-cost, mass-produced goods. You mention that the move to plastic is a response to the increasing commodity price of metals, which of course is correct. However when those models are still sold (whether painted poorly, or unpainted and unassembled) at a very similar level to the metal models of other companies, which “feel” higher quality (and are certainly more “hand-made” than their plastic compatriots), then where is the apparent value for the customer? And in a market facing a slow down, apparent value is everything - when your pockets are being pinched, no one wants to feel ripped off.

    I see the likes of GW doing “deals” on the large volumes of figures for Apocalypse already - something that was unheard of only 12 months ago - but they need to discount further and harder to return to growth in volume, and Rackham need to stop being so precious towards the European market. They AREN’T some sort of “premium art product”, they are just toys for boys, pure and simple. Sure there is some sort of inelasticity in the market, but I think the “big” companies published financial results have demonstrated that consumers have been pushed to the limits of that elasticity, and there aren’t enough customers left to sustain such high prices for much longer.

    To put it into context, my prediction is that if GW and others do stamp on internet discounting, then that will be their deathknell. GW for instance, can’t take even a 1% drop in their turnover next year, and if the price to the consumer rises by eliminating those 10-20% regular discounts, they are writing off a massive chunk of their customer base.

    GW have always maintained that if they discount their product they don’t see an increase in sales. And therefore demand is inelastic. My argument based on my observations of many, many other gamers, is that everyone likes a bargain. Sure they may not buy MORE if you reduce prices, but if you increase prices (or hold them steady in a falling market) they will certainly LOSE sales. Demand is not that inelastic at all, and the fact that GW’s turnover is, in real terms, no higher than it was in 2001 lies testament to that.

    My sympathies lie too with the “skirmish games are the new future”. My last purchase of 2007 was Tannhauser. A complete game for multiple players I can play straight out the box, whether with my geek buddies, or possibly even family and non-geek friends. All-in for £26 off ebay with no “hidden extras”. What a bargain! Who the heck needs the lumbering dinosaurs like the traditional companies with value like that on offer? Having perused the rules, I can see their beig enough entertainment value to satisfy my gaming needs for several months. I therefore won’t be “needing” to buy any new toys from other manufacturers for a large chunk of next year. Great news for my wallet!
    redstripe says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 7:19 am

    I’ve really been thinking about getting into Weird World War II stuff but there seems to be a lot of options for rules around. From your article, you seem to suggest Rattrap’s rules?

    I really like the Darkson miniatures that have been coming out.
    Zac says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 7:20 am

    We do indeed pay a premium for products in the hobby. And boxed sets like AT-43 do really not compare well with products in your local Toys R’ Us or similar store in the UK.

    Where we really see the difference is in things like prepainted diecast 1:48th scale vehicles.

    One difference that the gaming industry has that someone like Tamiya doesn’t is that Tamiya doesn’t have to write the history of WWII and the background for each faction in the conflict and then design paint schemes for them.

    All of this is done.

    I also suspect that things like Star Wars diecast toys are produced in volumes that would make AT-43 look like a rounding error.

    We still should see some sort of price decreases and my impression was that FFG was reducing prices on the AT-43 products in Europe (can someone confirm that?) and I would suspect that GW is going to have to drop the prices of their plastic kits in the next year or so to keep them competitive.

    I can currently pay less for a painted AT-43 Fire Toad with a shipping container in the box that I can for a plastic 40K Dreadnought. I don’t think that GW will continue to allow Rackham/FFG to have that sort of price advantage for too long.
    Zac says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 7:45 am

    From your article, you seem to suggest Rattrap’s rules?

    It depends on what sort of game you want to play. Rattrap’s rules are very character driven and are smaller, more cinematic games. Typically three to five minis on a side and the game lends itself to connected scenarios and campaigns.

    I actually tend to like more large scale combat games with less character and more zombie hordes so I’ve been using some homebrew rules as well as testing SotR and waiting eagerly for AE-WWII
    Grant says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 8:06 am

    We still should see some sort of price decreases and my impression was that FFG was reducing prices on the AT-43 products in Europe (can someone confirm that?)

    There’s been a recent price drop in the UK. It might not be available everywhere yet though.
    P-ko says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 8:14 am

    “We still should see some sort of price decreases and my impression was that FFG was reducing prices on the AT-43 products in Europe (can someone confirm that?) ”

    afaik FFG is not allowed to sell to mainland europe,so no price drops for us.
    operator5 says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 8:18 am

    Zac is correct about our rules. The type of Weird War II game you want to play will dictate the rules you use. I prefer character driven games with players controlling a hero and 2-4 sidekick/minions. A Weird War II game might have Captain America and Bucky vs. The Red Skull and some German soldiers.

    A larger scale game like Sgt. Rock and Easy Company (and I mean the whole company not just a couple of the guys from it) vs. a horde of Germans with War Walkers would be better served by a set of rules with less detail to their characters. I’ve seen some people suggest Battleground Weird War II for that type of game.
    Zac says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 8:19 am

    FFG is acting as a distributor in the UK. I am not sure who is doing distribution in Europe but it might still be Rackham.

    I would be quite surprised if the European prices didn’t move to reflect the UK prices given how easy it would be to order product from England.
    redstripe says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 8:28 am

    Thanks for the tip operator5. I’ve heard a lot of good comments about the Battleground rules but I think I’ll give Rattrap a try. They also have a few other publications that have caught my eye.
    Zac says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 8:31 am

    Rich also doesn’t mention that his ruleset also allows you a lot of flexibility to create custom characters and sidekicks so even if you are using a Mad Scientist type character you can give them different abilities and skills each time you play.

    So even with a few minis you’re not stuck playing against the same villains or using the same heroes each time.
    Jeremy says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 8:31 am

    I have tried in the past to say what the big companies (and small) should do. But alas I give that up. There are a million opinions and mine is not amoung the most economically informed.

    So I will say what they have to do to keep me (the only one I can speak for) as a customer. I am a 30 year old male with 18 years of experience gaming. I have a family and therefore less time and money than teenage players. That’s my background. I may very well be no one’s target audience.

    I want quality. I want to feel my purchase was worth the money. I want good rules and good miniatures - for the price. If I am going to pay ten dollars for a mini, it better be made of metal and of a quality matching or exceeding old Confrontation metal or a lot of PP’s stuff. If I want cheap pre-painted plastic, I expect to pay cheap prices. The only thing that has kept me out of AT43 has been the price. If I want low quality plastic minis painted at a low quality (compared to my own abilities - which aren’t that great), I would rather buy Heroscape.

    I no longer feel its necessary to use a manufacturers minis with only their own ruleset. I will buy whatever mini I like and use it with whatever rules system I like or make one of my own.

    So if for some reason a company would want my money, this is what they should provide (in all or part):

    1. Well written rules that play smoothly and logically with plenty of the army building work done for me and little to no contradictions or errors…I can’t stand FAQs. They should not exist.

    2. Highly detailed metal miniatures that I can paint to suit my needs for special models or skirmish games.

    3. Descent quality plastic minis at a bargain price for rank-and-file in large size games. Painted or not, it doesn’t matter. Painted does not affect the mini’s desirability to me at all. I can paint. I like to paint. I want my army o suit my taste. If their paintjob happens to do so and is good enough for play on rank-and-files, then great, it saves me precious time. If not, it might as well be unpainted.

    That’s about it. That is all that could get my money. I would be interested in hearing from others exactly what they are looking for. We can compare that with what the trends seem to be for the future year.
    jedijon says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 11:22 am

    Pretty tall order there ‘mon!

    Who’s getting your money now? Even your examples can’t live up to the breadth of criteria you’ve got there. Heroscape has errata and an FAQ, and the minis are cheap–but the collectivist urge and the terrain sets add up REAL fast.

    And, I’m having an awfully hard time finding a Rackham quality mini for just 10 dollars. Their MSRP for the cheapest of models had been $10.40, but I guess you can get PP box sets to average out to that if they meet your quality criteria, and Anima Tactics and Infinity are in that neighborhood.

    Me–I’m just looking for somebody who’s going to deliver consistently and enough releases to keep me amused clicking on their web-site and who isn’t going to take me for a ride as a fan. An obvious ex-Rackham-ite talking here.

    ‘08 predictions? They fold. Wizards will put out a new miniatures game, paint jobs will disappoint 75%+ of PP’s existing fans w/Monsterpocalypse, and have we heard an MSRP on that? I’m going for well out of impulse range–20 bucks is my guess. As if Dreamblade didn’t teach us enough about the ground already trod in the collectible format with card-games pricepoint.

    I like the point about cross-over games. I definitely think that RPGs and board games give the miniatures world some valuable room to breath in our video-game world.
    Jeremy says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 12:26 pm

    Heh, well I guess I should have been more precise (though I already hate how long my posts seem to be) ^_^

    I will spend $10 or more if the mini is worth it. I guess I have also been spoiled on a lot of discounts at my local game shop on Rackham and PP stuff lately as well.

    I dont buy Heroscape either. I was just saying that if I was to buy low quality, badly painted plastics I would go for something cheaper than AT43 thats for sure. I have considered buying Heroscape minis in the past. But I never considered buying them for the rules, just extras in my forces.
    metalminimadness says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 1:05 pm

    Heroscape has been dirt cheap lately on a certain internet retailing giant named after a great river. I haven’t ever played the game yet but if I can get two completely different starter sets for $25 combined over the last few weeks, I’m a heck of a lot more interested in something. $25 at an LGS gets you very, very little in comparison in my experience. I hope no laws are enacted to make internet retailers charge full msrp. But even if they did, they’d still be cheaper than my two local ripoff LGS’s.

    Between Heroscape and AT-43 (and Tannhauser and Memoir ‘44 if I can get my hands on them), plastics are looking like a very nice alternative. I still ordered Hordes and love playing Warmachine and Anima Tactics but as for cost per actual game playing time, you can’t beat the non-collectable plastics.
    Calculon says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 7:12 pm

    Infinity, though near-impossible to purchase (at least in Canada), is definitely more than a blip on my radar this year, as is Flames of War. Two games which target smaller-profit niches (WWII battle and Sci-fi skirmish) which caught a lot of love — but again, only from die-hards. For all that their wargame tables are expansive, Battlefront is still a fairly niche-oriented player, and Infinity is maybe a touch on the weird side.

    It’s skirmish, though, has rich and fun rules, and has beautiful scuplts. It just isn’t poised to get mass market attention. It’s a shame — I’d love to have a surfeit of opponents for Infinity.
    Zac says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 7:21 pm

    Calculon what part of Canada are you in? One of the local stores here doesn’t have much trouble getting Infinity figs and rules in when we order them. If you want I can find out what distributor he orders from
    briguy says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 7:41 pm

    Zac: If you’re referring to the store I think you are, then I believe he’s also indicated that he is willing to do mail order within Canada.

    metalminimadness: Even if MRSP gets enforced in the US, I’m sure there will still be enterprising Canadian or European retailers willing to sell to you for less. :-)
    Calculon says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 8:14 pm

    In Toronto, I’m near a store that special-orders Infinity intermittently. But there’s no place I know where you can walk in and see a shelf of beautiful shiny metal beckoning — that situtation is getting rarer and rarer. GW and Confrontation used to be in that enviable position, where they had shelf space for their products. At the moment, stocked minis seem to be limiting themselves to Warmachine and Hordes, at least at my FLGSes.

    The scene is changing. Who knows how many manufacturers have ever really been “sustainable” in their sales models, but now the pressure is to earn big or die. Not the sort of situation that appeals to a hobbyist, sweating in the company’s marketing gunsights.
    Zac says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 8:18 pm

    I doubt that anyone will ever stock Infinity in the numbers that they stock Warmachine. Its a sad fact but the demand isn’t there.
    Cosmotiger says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 8:22 pm

    Zac, you make a very interesting point about 40K post-Apocalypse. I think you’re right, now that Apocalypse is on the shelves, they should already be teasing the “next big thing,” if they want to sustain the customers’ interest.
    Xenon_Wulf says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 10:33 pm

    I’d just like to point out that Frontiers has been released for some time now and has been available since Oct/Nov.

    Yeah - it’s a pity about Battlefield Evolution. I’ve heard nothing but amazing things about their ruleset. Unfortunately, the quality of their minis and tthe price of said minis did not make me pick up the rules (and this is coming from someone who collects miniatures rulesets). As a matter of fact, I once made a comment about the paintjobs being not all that great, the sculpts not being more than average and the price being way too high within ear of a Mongoose rep (without knowing he was a Mongoose rep). Let’s just say that my opinion was very badly recieved and despite being exaggerated as to how negative it was, yet the fact that Mongoose announced not more than 2-3 months later that the line would be “temporarily suspended” made me feel that my opinion was rather valid.
    Calculon says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 11:13 pm

    On a whim I purchased a pair of starting forces for Starship Troopers at Mongoose’s site. The core Arachnid models, such as warriors, tankers and plasma bugs, along with Marauder and Exo suits, really are quite charming if a bit fuzzy on the close-up detail. I think that sticking with unpainted plastic can work as long as there’s some indication that other people will play the game, but unlike Privateer’s ongoing scenario strategy and league system, or GW’s omnipresence, I don’t think Mongoose has cultivated the atmosphere of an active community that will invite the casual newcomer. No such thing as 350-point battlebox matches or combat patrols. But the rules are great - very modern in their design, the order and reaction system, and the streamlined resolution rolls.

    But there’s a lot of effort involved in getting started, and the license (particularly related to the less-seen CGI show) wasn’t vibrant. The game still exists, quietly, waiting for the summer relaunch, but it’s a bit sad to think what could have been when a great Sci-Fi license, great rules, and great miniatures come together.

    If there were a new Starship Troopers movie coming out this year and Mongoose were ready with a low-entry-bar, prepainted line of miniatures, with those (or Battlefield Evo’s) rules, they could have made a killing. If the Halo license had gone to Mongoose instead of WizKids, coupled with the release of Halo 3, it could have been a perfect storm. Ah, hindsight.

    On the other hand, Starcraft 2 is on the way… anyone got *that* license?
    chopa says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 11:16 pm

    Big stores like WalMart and Target typically have a decent variety of Wizkids and WotC products at least in my experience
    Jim Bailey says:
    December 23rd, 2007 at 10:33 am

    Well reasoned and insightful as always Zac. Thanks for doing what you do. I have only been reading your pages for a few months now but I am continually amazed at the quality and character of the material and the objective journalism herein. Thanks again for this great editorial.

    Here’s to next year!

    Jim
    Zac says:
    December 23rd, 2007 at 3:03 pm

    Thanks very much Jim.
    Trent McCaffrey says:
    December 23rd, 2007 at 7:25 pm

    Great post Zac. Here’s a few things more food for thought items:

    GW closed their forums in Nov 2006 which dispersed criticism of their products in 2007.

    Rackham allowed their forums to stay open during a troubling time for them which left them vulnerable to much public criticism.

    GW discounted Apocalypse armies, but haven’t provided an obsolescence strategy for the supplement’s lack of replay value. This may lead to turnover on eBay and subsequent slowing of new sales.

    Gamers have been willing to pay full price for “hot” games (popular up-and-coming such as Privateer Press) and complain loudly on the price of big-company games.

    Privateer has organized many successful hard-core tournaments which attract all types of players, while GW tournaments still suffer the pointless and divisive debate of Composition scores (North America) vs Hardcore (UK Heats).

    EA Mythic seems to be finally set to release Warhammer Online. Will this bring in a trickle of new players to the hobby? Or will it simply generate a healthy stream of license revenue for GW?

    The continuing difficulty gaming companies face in trying to recruit new hobbyists away from video games. What will be the next Magic: The Gathering in gaming?
    BrigadeGames says:
    December 23rd, 2007 at 8:32 pm

    I agree with many of the points that Zac made except for one glaring error.

    Rich and Rattrap Productions has been at the forefront of the pulp revolution supplying us all with great rules and supplement books and a great selection of miniatures, But to clarify, my company, Brigade Games, and Bob Murch’s company Pulp Figures have been the leaders here - just look at how long we have been making figures for the “pulp” and related genres. And heck, not to downplay others, but I had a WW2 Horror range long before the others mentioned here.

    Small manufacturers like us and the brands I import are all about quality. Like Zac, this is a part time business for me, taking full time time and truly is a labor of love, Quality miniatures are never going to make us rich and heck I always worry about breaking even. But there is something about seeing people enjoy buying, painting and playing with miniatures that we produce. That is why I do it.

    I have had the pleasure of knowing and working close with Rich this past year. Rich is one of those people in the industry with a passion that is hard to describe. He puts so much work into his books and their promotion. The friends he has enlisted to help him show the same great passion. If you ever get a chance to play in one of his games at a convention - do it! You will have one of the best gaming experiences.

    I have been a historical wargamer since about age 11 (I will be 44 in a few days.) I think the biggest change in the last year is the general acceptance of skirmish style gaming and the rise of pulp and alternative associate genres (space, ww2 horror, musketeers and pirates, etc.) On the historical side, 28mm WW2 has been a big driver of the change of mind of the majority of historical gamers to skirmish gaming in the past 4 years.

    Let us face reality. Most of us have less and less time to devote to the gaming hobby due to work and life. So when we game we want something substantial but doesn’t take 8 hours to play, 2 hours to read through the basic rules and another 2 to set up. They want a quality experience for the 2+ hours they set aside to game. So the rules and miniatures gamers buy are more important than ever.

    2008 is shaping to be a great year. I look forward to meeting and making more friends through the year.

    Happy Holidays all

    Lon
    Zac says:
    December 23rd, 2007 at 8:47 pm

    But to clarify, my company, Brigade Games, and Bob Murch’s company Pulp Figures have been the leaders here - just look at how long we have been making figures for the “pulp” and related genres.

    I don’t think that I am much different than many of the readers here when I say that I find miniatures to play games and in the case of a company like yours and Pulp Figures I found them by looking for figures to use with rules like Rich’s Amazing War Stories.

    So we certainly don’t mean any disservice but our path to miniature companies is often through rules that we play or want to play so the entry point to Brigade’s cool Weird War minis for me was through trying to find fun figs to use in Amazing War Stories.

    I saw Rich’s demo table at Gen Con and I agree that he does indeed put on a great game and has an infectious love for this genre and for creating fun gaming experiences for people.
    Zac says:
    December 23rd, 2007 at 9:19 pm

    GW closed their forums in Nov 2006 which dispersed criticism of their products in 2007.

    Rackham allowed their forums to stay open during a troubling time for them which left them vulnerable to much public criticism.

    I don’t know that the two are as similar as they may appear. Whatever criticism that Rackham had received on their forum it seems to have had a more solid grounding than the general bitchiness that defined the GW forums. GW also doesn’t need their forum. Their games get discussed in a wide variety of online locations and they have direct access to their fans via White Dwarf magazine. Rackham still requires a direct connection to their fans even if that forum may from time to time get out of their control.

    So when GW sees critique of their products on their forum they view it, I think, in a different light than a company like Rackham does.

    I also think that GW also had a moderation issue outside of the critique of their products that made their forums a pain in the butt to run. The level of discourse on the forum wasn’t very high and GW bears responsibility for not cleaning that up.

    GW discounted Apocalypse armies, but haven’t provided an obsolescence strategy for the supplement’s lack of replay value. This may lead to turnover on eBay and subsequent slowing of new sales.

    I can’t agree more. I also don’t know if the management of GW cares. They made their money and I have yet to see that the GW management team is interested in anything other than making sales targets. I think GW is in the situation they are in because of a lack of long-term planning and Apocalypse has the look of a single shot product on their part.

    If this is the case then this is a real shame because I think the game did a lot to rebuild the gaming audience for 40K and it doesn’t seem to me that it would have been that difficult to keep feeding and building that market.

    Gamers have been willing to pay full price for “hot” games (popular up-and-coming such as Privateer Press) and complain loudly on the price of big-company games.

    I think that complaining about the price of figures is part of the hobby for some people :-) The hobby we are in is smaller than people realise and prices in it suffer in comparison to prices for products like mass produced 1:48 scale modern tanks or WWII vehicles. Even companies like WizKids and Hasbro produce their games in volumes that would even dwarf GW. And so its difficult to see how smaller firms can be price competitive especially with the rapid increase in the price of metal in the last few years.

    All of that said, I have, for some time, been quite surprised by how often people will critique the price of miniatures and games. I don’t think that it is just larger companies that get this grief. I have seen single person manufacturers be pilloried for the price of their metal figs almost as often as I have seen GW get critiqued. Its a part of the hobby that I really wish would disappear. If you don’t want to pay the price for a fig then don’t buy it.

    Privateer has organized many successful hard-core tournaments which attract all types of players, while GW tournaments still suffer the pointless and divisive debate of Composition scores (North America) vs Hardcore (UK Heats).

    I think that Privateer Press has far fewer issues with game balance in their games than GW does. I have to say that I am always surprised by the discussions of Composition scoring that go on amongst 40K and WFB players. I really don’t have enough experience with either game to make a definitive comment but it always strikes me as an indicator that both games really don’t have a balanced army construction system. Especially WFB. If you need to have a system to penalise gamers that tweak their army choices to maximise their chance of winning then you are basically saying that the system is broken.

    Warmachine and Hordes have, it seems, a system for balance based on mutual lack of balance in each faction and so there is less room for power gaming in those games. Its still possible but less of a factor in my experience. The last few Warmachine expansions have helped to make it easier to use all of the units in each faction and so the last few years have seen a lot more different armies in WM events than previously.

    I would suspect that part of the success of PP games in a tournament setting is that the tournaments typically use a common set of scenarios that most gamers have played repeatedly and which often do not seem to favour one type of gaming style, army style or faction. The GW events that I have gone to or seen tend to have custom scenarios and the idea of a common set of event scenarios like Steamroller might be a good idea for 40K and WFB.

    PP and other companies also appear to do more work at events like Origins, Gen Con and similar events. GW stays inside its own hermetically sealed gaming environment and doesn’t get a lot of new gamers going into it. Why they don’t go to Gen Con and run events is beyond me but when I was at Gen Con I saw 100s of non PP gamers walking by the tournaments, demos and displays. Some of them were interested, some of them asked questions. How many non GW gamers go to Games Day or the, now cancelled, Conflict Events?

    EA Mythic seems to be finally set to release Warhammer Online. Will this bring in a trickle of new players to the hobby? Or will it simply generate a healthy stream of license revenue for GW?

    I can’t see this game moving players from console and computer games to tabletop games. AT-43 has more chance of this. Compelling tabletop experiences will bring in those console gamers and stores or clubs to see those games played will do that as well. Not Warhammer video games.

    The continuing difficulty gaming companies face in trying to recruit new hobbyists away from video games. What will be the next Magic: The Gathering in gaming?

    Nothing will. Or at the very least we won’t be able to predict it. MtG was a wild success because it was unique and came at a time when gaming was, to my mind, stagnant. MtG created an entire genre and these sorts of events are, almost by definition, unpredictable.

    The current gaming market is very busy and filled with a lot of new games, new types of gaming (like AT-43) and a lot of cross pollination in genres and game types as exhibited by games like Tannhauser.

    I’d wait for a quieter recessionary period in the industry for a product like MtG to come around.

    What may help to bring new gamers (console or non console) into the hobby are products like Tannhauser, Tide of Iron and AT-43 that give people a task of the tabletop hobby without requiring them to paint a 2000 point force.
    Trent McCaffrey says:
    December 24th, 2007 at 12:15 am

    I think that Privateer Press has far fewer issues with game balance in their games than GW does.
    Hordesmachine shooting and magic attack ranges are just slightly longer than charge ranges. None of this destroying an army from across the table while it trudges towards yours. It’s incredibly unrealistic, but PP games are even less of a simulation than GW games; rather, PP goes for great game play instead. As much as I love Hordesmachine, it’s major pitfall is that you can’t tell what any model does by looking at it! :)
    Ray Rivers says:
    December 24th, 2007 at 4:54 am

    Hi!

    Very interesting article. The future, indeed, should be quite interesting.

    I’ve been a tabletop miniatures wargamer for 30+ years and have seen lots of things come and go. I started as a 15mm historical gamer and then moved into SciFi with GW. I must say that the reason I shifted to GW was that their universe was so compelling and their minis, head and shoulders, were the best the hobby had ever seen. I enjoyed the GW experience, but there was a limit to how many Space Marines I could paint… In the end, prices were increasing as my interest in general was also waning. I stopped buying GW minis. That was at least five year ago.

    You see, I shift around a lot as my interest takes me. That was the nice thing about “true” 15mm in my day, it was easy to paint up a new army in relatively little time. The move to 28mm by GW however, did get my interest, if for no other reason than the incredible amount of detail that was packed in the minis. 15s couldn’t even come close to this and is a big reason why I took “the plunge.” But after having “done that” I came to the realization that 28mm not only was costly in monetary terms but also in a more precious commodity… time. So as my interest in GW was failing, I was left in a bit of dilemma… where do I go next? I initially moved to FoW and then to AT-43. I was hoping to see Starship Troopers Evo but alas…

    So I started looking all over the net for something “new” and to tell you the truth, not much got my interest. I’m not into fantasy or pulp. I like “army” style games, but I’m not willing to spend the time anymore that 28mm requires.

    In the end, I decided on 18mm Napoleonics. The detail on the minis is of very high quality and they paint up really quick. For us “army” kinda people (probably very few of us around nowadays…), the options are very limited.

    To finish my post, I’d like to make a couple “observations” concerning the hobby from my perspective of 30+ years…

    When I first started gaming, the big attraction for me was fighting battles on a ping pong table with hundreds of minis. Now at that time, minis didn’t have the detail that they do now. I used to pump out regiments by the boat load and never worried about the fact that I didn’t paint their boot laces. Yet, I must admit, there was a yearning for higher quality minis but even back then true 25mm demanded lots of time… the hobby went into decline.

    When the GW phenomena broke it had a pretty profound impact on tabletop miniatures wargaming, IMO, in a number of ways. It not only brought in lots of new folks but also made SciFi an “acceptable” tabletop genre, where once only historicals ruled the table. I was fine with that as the “universe” was so darned kewl. I did, however, want to continue to have “large” games, and I just accepted the fact that it would take me more time to paint to get there. But then another phenomena occurred, an even more significant one, IMO, and that was the rise of the “pro painter.”

    The raise of the “pro painter” movement in minis, IMO came directly from GW. I, just like probably thousands, learned lots of new techniques from their tutorials and found my painting technique improving vastly. You see, the “pro painter” movement was not about a couple talented painters, it was about making all of us talented painters… and it is perhaps why, Zac, you (unlike myself) view the hobby as separated into two groups…. gamers and miniatures enthusiasts.

    Unfortunately, I believe the “pro painter” movement had a very negative impact on the hobby as a whole in the long run. Imagine yourself as never having had any experience with tabletop miniatures wargaming. You see some really nice painted minis and decide to give it a go. The problem, however, for the average person, is that they are not going to be able to produce minis at the “pro painter” level any time soon. The person comes away with the impression that he is somehow lacking and losses interest. I think that is very unfortunate and sets a barrier to the entry of many folks into tabletop gaming. I believe it might also explain the popularity of board games with painted minis and AT-43 that you mentioned in your editorial.

    In my day, getting together and fighting battles on a ping pong table was not just a hobby, it was a social event. It was a time to have fun, to enjoy history and to show off your new units. Folks might comment that the “pants” should be a little darker, but nobody cared about whether or not they had been shaded and highlighted… let alone blended.

    Now I know that lots of folks want to blame falling sales on increased prices, and while I am sure that is true for many mainstream gamers, I personally don’t think that is the whole story. The raise of the “pro painter” syndrome, IMO, closely correlates as well.

    As many have observed, GW was the gateway into which many tabletop miniatures wargamers entered into the hobby. I believe it was successful in doing so not only because of its subject matter and minis, but also because it encouraged youngsters to play (the very important social thing I mentioned before) and to “learn” how to paint. It didn’t really matter how well you painted the minis… like 30+ years ago… it was all about fun.

    Tabletop miniatures wargaming can be fun, but not if we give the impression to new folks that you have to be a “pro painter” to enjoy it.

    I am proud of the minis I paint and post pictures of on the net, but deep inside, I have this feeling I am setting a performance bar, that folks with little or no experience cannot hope to achieve. That is a problem…

    Respectfully,

    Ray Rivers
    Zac says:
    December 26th, 2007 at 10:22 am

    Thanks for the comments Ray

    I am proud of the minis I paint and post pictures of on the net, but deep inside, I have this feeling I am setting a performance bar, that folks with little or no experience cannot hope to achieve. That is a problem…

    I think there are enough examples online of people with tabletop quality armies that we won’t be scaring off new gamers any time soon.

    There is a bit of a problem with companies posting photos of lower quality paint jobs though as I understand the desire to show “achievable” paint schemes but it also typically generates complaints from people online about the quality of the paint job and most companies want to present their minis in the best light possible.

    Its a tricky area but I think that if we all, as gamers, make sure that we are supportive of people’s attempt to paint and get their armies finished that people will continue to paint and advance in their painting skill sets.
    mathieu says:
    December 26th, 2007 at 9:41 pm

    GW closed their forums in Nov 2006 which dispersed criticism of their products in 2007.
    Rackham allowed their forums to stay open during a troubling time for them which left them vulnerable to much public criticism.

    I am familiar neither with the situation on the late GW forums, nor with a dispersion of the criticisms toward their products, nor even with the connection between said dispersion and the forums closure. I am pretty familiar with the way Rackham handled their forums during the past few difficult months though, or more generally with their peculiar definition of “communication”.

    Until exactly two weeks ago, and starting with the successive announcements of Confrontation going plastic, of the partnership with FFG, and of their going under bankruptcy protection, there had been 3 interventions from Rackham people on each of their two forums. That’s about 6 posts over a 3-month period when their customer base was in dire need of a lot of communication. Moreover, the most meaningful out of this handful of posts was shedding only the hint of a very dim light on their situation. Hardly reassuring.

    I too do not imagine that Rackham had the option to shut their forums down during that period of time. It would have probably avoided a lot of heat, but at least keeping them running maintained the community alive, if barely. In my opinion, their choice revealed the lesser of two evils (as opposed to a good choice) only because of the