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 their feeble skills in communication. Hasn’t it been pretty obvious from day one that going mute was not the answer? I think they’ve finally realized that it has… Hopefully it’s not too late.

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?

One thing that struck me as having some potential at the latest GenCon Indy was the Eye of the Judgement game. For those of us unfamiliar with it, a video camera is literally reading the cards you put on the table, and translates them on screen into whatever monster/unit the card represents, or into the spell/effect that card can trigger. It allows to play a card game with a distant opponent via an online connection.

Imagine now a prepainted miniature game where each mini has some barcode type thing that the camera can decipher… Each on-screen mini could be customizable, making almost irrelevant the quality of the sculpts or the paintjob, and no FAQ would be needed since the game engine would be fixed as bugs are discovered. Plus one could still use the minis to play with dices and rulers…

Being more a painter than a gamer myself I don’t think I’d be interested in such a game. However the cool factor of the EotJ demos was definitely very, very high. I can definitely imagine new gamers getting attracted to the ‘hobby’ through a game like that.
What do you guys think?

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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?

Here’s to next year!

Jim

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?

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.