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 MWHistorian wrote:
Also, since leaving GW, I've found that learning new rules is actually quite exciting! It's amazing what a rule set that doesn't hate the player does for a game.

Wholeheartedly agree. I've enjoyed reading RPG systems rules since I stopped playing dnd 3.5 in mid 00's. Even never having played a game of it, I know a lot of rule systems simply because it's great fun to learn them. Most recently was 40k deathwatch which I've been pouring over and making chars for despite not playing. I haven't made the transition into reading wargame rules that I don't play yet, but I don't think it's far off.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
As a fan of Malifaux, and not that I desire to change your mind, but what about the rules don't you like? (I'm usually curious as to why people dislike a certain rule set, aside from GW, because I personally think that they're ALL right and I also dont like GW rules )

How long ya got?

First off, I'll admit that part of it is that I was caught like a deer in the headlights. The host of our regular gaming night got into Malifaux in a big way, becoming a henchman pretty quickly. Others in the group went mad for it too. Me, I wasn't completely regular attendee (much longer travel distance than others) so I mostly got by with borrowed crews and minis from the others. By the time I settled on my main master and his box-set crew, I was a bit like a noob with a 40K starter set, taking on hardcore tourney gamers.

But, I settled on C. Hoffman, and I think that's where I really started to sour on the game. There were some aspects to the game that I didn't much like anyway, reminding me of 40K in ways. The enormous heap of unique special rules on each model's card, for instance. There may be many fewer minis in a game of Malifaux but they all had a card like that, that had to be squinted at too often to see what the options were, and how exactly they were resolved, and if they triggered anything else, and what effect they'd have in any given situation. The 'combos' were an extension of that, and it's part of what put me off Warmachine for this long, too.
I have to say that I might be a grumpy old grognard, but I didn't like the aesthetic of the models either. Some interesting poses and I have to admit, clever cutting up of pieces for the plastic sprues, but overall I thought they looked too overwrought and trying too hard to be edgy and grimdark. F'r instance, I prefer the older metal of the Governor's Proxy to the new plastic. (Or what'll be the new plastic) The former is just an old guy standing there with quill and book, but I think it has more character than the latter. The new version just makes me think... Poochie. And for all the new flapping robes and Joker-grin and grr-pose and claws and floating quill, is he still just basically a tagalong who provides a couple of buffs and trip-ups?
Not to mention the trend for ludicrously long limbs, particularly legs, that seemed to appear with the new plastics. More noticeable to me after learning a few anatomical proportions for mini-sculpting. My henchman friend never noticed 'til I pointed it out!

But, I digress. Hoffman. This is where the imbalance in 1st ed really started to bite me, when I was literally invested in the game. Probably the slowest master, even with 'drawn to metal' and other tricks, in a game where mobility, rushing to the objectives and getting first licks in is very important. His starter set comes with a bunch of constructs, at a time when constructs (or at least guild constructs) were made of glass. (armor 2 and minor healing buffs aren't much cop when you've got pisspoor toughness and a CC monster wailing on you and chewing off wounds like corn on the cob) Even my henchman friend was surprised by just how fragile the hunter was, even when I stopped running it into combat and tried to use it's speed to grab objectives.
Then the Ten Thunders were released, and the henchman snapped up Mei Feng right away. Holy frickin' moley. And people think GW's power creep is bad. Talk about your mobile CC monsters. When that thing springs halfway across the board to kick your master in the face, you feel it yourself. He also used a rail golem, which was worse. Here's the thing: I also used a guild peacekeeper in some games. Both it and the rail golem were constructs, both the same 'size' in the rules, and both the same cost in soulstones. One had to use up resources in order to merely remain at it's standard power level. The other automatically generated resources which it could immediately use to give itself more power, more actions, or whatnot. Guess which one was which?
I had the peacekeeper and rail golem face off in a game, once. The rail golem charged the peacekeeper. The peacekeeper was demolished in moments, with no possibility to react. Then the rail golem turned it's attention to Hoffman and his guardian.

I like tactical games, or at least I like to think I like tactical games. Games between two equally-pointed and balanced forces (not cookie-cutter, just appropriately pointed for the power level), in which your in-game decisions actually matter. Games in which 'combos', or supported assaults, or clever maneuvering or whatever arise from the basic mechanics and universal special rules, not auto-triggered or near-automatic choices of exceptional effects. (in a game where ironically, everyone possesses at least one exceptional effect) Malifaux may be some kind of tactical game, to some people, but it didn't feel that way to me.
Maybe Hoffman is a tricky master, and you need to spend more time and brains in order to coax out his real power and tactics. I admit I got on the first couple of rungs of that ladder - I almost gained control of rail workers and the rail golem a couple of times, learned to keep constructs close by (though again, in a game where mobility is king), and even snuck a peek at Pullmyfinger once or twice. But y'know, it's bleedin' difficult when - like I say - you have Mei Fengs and rail golems and Lady Justices and things that don't need extra time and brains to run up to your characters and squash them flat. I've had a couple of games where I didn't get past turn two (see peacekeeper vs. rail golem) and couldn't see how I could have prevented it at all. Not to repeat myself, but the other crew just leapt forward and that was that. Games with that kind of powerlessness and lack of control turn me right off.

Maybe I'd be blamed as a bad loser, or a 'fluff gamer' who purposely hobbles their list. For the former: I don't think it's that. There are other games, more balanced in my view, where I haven't minded losing because of my own stupid decisions (then it's my own limitations, and those don't seem as bad, or as impossible to overcome, as a game's limitations) or even when the dice occasionally go against me. One of the best laughs I had in a game was when I blundered a Black Powder order: my ACW gun crew picked up their piece and charged straight towards the confederate lines - waaagh!
For the latter: maybe. Maybe I shouldn't have stuck with Hoffman and his small crew (plus one or two extras). But maybe I want to be able to pick or stick to any models or units I like, within reason and to an agreed points limit, and have them able to perform as well, in their own way, as the agreed points limit of the other side. It's the mark of an unbalanced game if you can't, IMO. I've seen the same condescending 'fluff gamer' remark in 40K and WHFB gaming, as if it's a disability, and I'd like to shoot a condescending 'learn to play a real game rather than hiding behind your Listbuilder 40,000 autowin, dudebro' back at it.
But I digress. Again. Crewbuilding in Malifaux gets me too. When I finally got the idea that you pick your crew after determining the scenario, I started to think: well, that implies that you're better off not using the same crew for each scenario. The game almost requires you to buy a load of extra models to tailor your 5-8 model crew each time, and stay competitive. It started to feel like Pokemon - gotta catch 'em all! - or like 40K's pay-to-win aspect.

Then there's the cards... Early on I heard them touted as better than dice because they were... less random. Drawing from a 52-card deck is less random than a D6. I admit the context was in the ability to cheat fate with the cards in your hand, but all the same, you still have to draw that hand from a full deck. And its like rerolls weren't a thing, all of a sudden.
I've moaned about having to keep referring to the rule cards, but I felt the fate cards were a speedbump too. Eventually I began to feel that Malifaux was more of a card game, and the minis were just convenient counters to be referred to from time to time to determine range. Hmm and haa about the difference in numbers and what kind of flip that tells you to make - double positive, positive, straight, negative, double negative; flip; flip; scrutinise your hand for any trigger suits; cheat; cheat; hmm and haa some more about the difference in numbers and what kind of result that gives you; see if that sets off any triggers that need resolved, with a strong chance that you need to hmm and haa, flip, cheat, cheat all over again...

It's not elegant. Not to me.

I've heard that 2nd ed balanced things better, and maybe it did. I liked how the rules cards were pared right down, with extra rules held off to one sides as purchasable (and ignorable) options. In the couple of 2nd ed games I've managed to play so far, I almost scraped a draw, once! Almost. But I don't know if it's enough to draw me back. Once bitten, twice shy.

The game nights have moved from the henchman host's home to the nerd-club at the nearby uni, where he continues to, I have to say, do a pretty good job as a Wyrd henchman. There isn't much other tabletop wargaming going on there among the RPGs and MtG (not even 40K!) but there is some Infinity happening alongside. In a ridiculous turn of events, some of the guys heavily into Malifaux also took a shine to Infinity, so I've been avoiding it as a kind of 'Malifaux in space'. But then on a quiet night, I had a demo game and realised what a moron I was to do that. It seems more intuitive, at least. These days I'm thinking a wee haqqislam team might let me see the group semi-regularly, but perhaps without playing a game that I can't enjoy.

I gotcha... Thing that I quickly got from Malifaux v1, was that different crews maintained an internal balance, and so long as you got the "right" mission for the crew you had, you'd do alright (but alas, this has never happened to me and my showgirls crew :( )


As for the card mechanics, I guess it's one of those things that, like rerolls in 40k, you *can* pick it up and things smooth out some, but yeah, there is a TON to learn right off the bat


I've also been curious about Infinity (more than curious, I actually bought the rule book)... but as I bought the rule book, and on paper the rules are set up within the book in a less than intuitive manner (at least to me they were)

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
I gotcha... Thing that I quickly got from Malifaux v1, was that different crews maintained an internal balance, and so long as you got the "right" mission for the crew you had, you'd do alright (but alas, this has never happened to me and my showgirls crew :( )


As for the card mechanics, I guess it's one of those things that, like rerolls in 40k, you *can* pick it up and things smooth out some, but yeah, there is a TON to learn right off the bat


I've also been curious about Infinity (more than curious, I actually bought the rule book)... but as I bought the rule book, and on paper the rules are set up within the book in a less than intuitive manner (at least to me they were)

The rulebook being set up in a less than intuitively way is a general consensus in the infinity community. Just get the fan revision of rules or use the wiki.

Am I a rarity? Just a week ago I got back into the 40k universe with a purchase of the re-released Dark Vengeance set.

I mainly make and paint rather than game so the duff rules do not mean much to me, but for a great price I get a lot of great plastic miniatures to paint up. Will it lead to larger SM/ Chaos SM armies? Probably not. But for what I see as a fair price I will more than reclaim my initial investment with the fun of painting them.


@Yonan you mentioned it a few pages back, but after you dropped out did your friends make any progress with the Deadzone/40k mashup? That I could play.

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
Am I a rarity? Just a week ago I got back into the 40k universe with a purchase of the re-released Dark Vengeance set.

I mainly make and paint rather than game so the duff rules do not mean much to me, but for a great price I get a lot of great plastic miniatures to paint up.

I've always said that GW makes (mostly) very good models, and the price per kit is (mostly) not more than I would pay for an individual kit, though this is rapidly changing. The problem for me is that the rules are not very good, IMO, and the cost for a "complete" army at the standard game size is far too much. The rules are poorly written, clunky, and not balanced. It comes closest to being balanced at around 1500 to 2000 points, where the average single army plus rules cost is between $550 and $700, and that's the bare minimum rules required to play (Rulebook+Codex).

In comparison, for that price I can get, say, The Warmachine rules and two to four 35 or 50 point armies (the points values most commonly played in WM/H), or god even knows how many Infinity squadrons or Malifaux crews. Even in larger scale games like Warzone Resurrection or Wargods of Aegyptus I can get two armies for the cost of one 40K army.

I would never seriously argue that a 40K army should be as cheap as an Infinity force. That would be silly and unreasonable. But the steep cost of a full army PLUS the steep startup costs PLUS the poor rules PLUS the rising quality of competitor's miniatures, which in some cases surpass GW's, makes 40K a very unattractive option for me, and looking at the lastest financial statement, I don't think I'm alone.

Other games may be more costly per model, but that's rapidly becoming untrue (Flash Gitz and Dire Avengers, I'm looking at you!), but the other issue is that I'll pay $50, 60, even more for a full unit of infantry, but generally with GW's stuff you need multiple copies of the same kit to be effective in the game, which is, again, more than I care to pay. Yeah, the, say, Gatorman Posse in Warmahordes is $45 for 5 models. But I'll never need more than one Gatorman Posse. Those Flash Gitz aren't going to be great with less than 10 of them. I'm gonna need three+ boxes of Tactical Marines for my Space Marine army.

I will say that GW still has most of the competition beat in terms of customization and extraneous bitz, but I'm not keen on the idea of paying a premium for bitz I'm never gonna use, ever.

Really, and again, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this,for me, the models are only a part of the equation. I like miniatures. I also like background, aesthetics, rules, value for money (admittedly a very nebulous concept), etc, with value-for-money and rules being the most important thing for me. With that said, I still place value on aesthetics and fluff (hence why I buy models instead of playing games with plastic army men or paper cutouts or what have you). It's just that GW doesn't have the proper balance of these elements for me. I will say that kit-for-kit Warmachine is also pretty damned expensive.

 Vermis wrote:

It's not elegant. Not to me.

I've heard that 2nd ed balanced things better, and maybe it did. I liked how the rules cards were pared right down, with extra rules held off to one sides as purchasable (and ignorable) options. In the couple of 2nd ed games I've managed to play so far, I almost scraped a draw, once! Almost. But I don't know if it's enough to draw me back. Once bitten, twice shy.

I've got to agree, 1E Malifaux was getting to be a bit of a bloated mess near the end, and it felt like skill mattered less and less compared to finding some ludicrous unpredictable combo buried amongst the bajillion special rules that each new model had.

But FWIW, I found 2E to be a huge improvement in terms of cutting the rules bloat, balancing out power levels and fixing other stuff like the utility of objectives and schemes. Indeed, looking at the ongoing improvement in editions in this and games like Firestorm Armada only soured me more on GW, where nobody seems to expect that the rules will be improved between editions or rules or codexes of 40K. They just grit their teeth and hope that the random rules changes and arbitary points values and "Wouldn't it be cool if...." new stuff doesn't completely shaft the army they've spent so much on.

1E Malifaux did have a lot of issues, remember when The Dreamer and his crew first came out? They were nigh on unbeatable. 2E is certainly a lot more balanced.

@Ratbot: I pretty much agree with all of your points. Ultimately it is your own hobby (and to an extent that of your friends/gaming group), you should own it. Play whatever rules you want, with whatever models you want. The only type of gamer that cannot really do this is the hardcore tournament gamer where you are obviously a lot more restrained in terms of choice.

But, like many, I love the 40k world so will continue to involve myself in it but also a whole slew of other games and their worlds. The sad thing is that current management at GW seem prepared to ruin a lot of what made their IP so enjoyable. But the player base is certainly declining, and at quite a rate. The sheer volume of alternatives highlighted in this thread also offer a reason as to why so many are leaving GW. In the past few decades there was just not the variety of rules systems and miniatures that you get today.

Yeah, man, I'm with you. I love the 40K universe and I still like playing Dawn of War and Space Marine and the FFG roleplaying games, and reading Black Library novels. I just wish GW made a decent set of rules with a lower barrier to entry, that they understood their market, their product, and the diverse industry they're a part of.

Ensis Ferrae wrote:I gotcha...

I'm a bit embarassed, looking back and seeing just how much I ranted there. But I had been keeping up with the Joneses so long, it just kinda built up. And you did ask!

MRPYM wrote:The rulebook being set up in a less than intuitively way is a general consensus in the infinity community. Just get the fan revision of rules or use the wiki.

Got it! Same thing with Dystopian Wars: another game the group got into, though didn't play anywhere as regularly as Malifaux! I quite enjoy that, but trying to refer back to the rulebook (again, 1st ed I think) for some obscure bit of effect resolution is a nightmare.

Thraxas Of Turai wrote:I mainly make and paint rather than game so the duff rules do not mean much to me

I think that would help a lot.

RatBot wrote:I've always said that GW makes (mostly) very good models, and the price per kit is (mostly) not more than I would pay for an individual kit, though this is rapidly changing...

I would never seriously argue that a 40K army should be as cheap as an Infinity force. That would be silly and unreasonable. But the steep cost of a full army PLUS the steep startup costs PLUS the poor rules PLUS the rising quality of competitor's miniatures, which in some cases surpass GW's, makes 40K a very unattractive option for me, and looking at the lastest financial statement, I don't think I'm alone.

Other games may be more costly per model, but that's rapidly becoming untrue (Flash Gitz and Dire Avengers, I'm looking at you!), but the other issue is that I'll pay $50, 60, even more for a full unit of infantry, but generally with GW's stuff you need multiple copies of the same kit to be effective in the game, which is, again, more than I care to pay.

For some reason this made me think that - besides and beyond the problems of rules - GW should try to claw back a wee bit of the impulse-buy market, like the days of metal blisters where you dropped a bit of pocket money on 3-5 models and slowly built your unit that way. Obviously you can't do that these days, but what about a pricing structure on plastic kits that takes the sting out out of it for people with a wee bit more disposable income? (and I mean a wee bit more) Needless to say it's different for everyone - I'd balk at $50-60 (£30-35). I think £20 would be the cutoff point for me. Much over would make me much more likely to put the box back on the shelf to 'think about it', and then forget about it. I have the feeling, based on no facts or information whatsoever, that'd be the sweet spot for a lot more potential customers than they have at the mo.
It depends what you get in the box, too. I don't suppose 15-20 infantry figures would be too much to ask? 40 would be even more welcome, though. (I mean, they might be little jewel-like items of wonder, cast in shapes that makes the brains of gamers go mad with devotion for the 40K universe, but they're still cheap, mass-produced plastic fer the luvva Mike.)

But of course, this just boils down to a generic 'I wish they cost less' moan, and there's much doubt if that'll do them much good at this point anyway.

Elemental wrote:But FWIW, I found 2E to be a huge improvement in terms of cutting the rules bloat, balancing out power levels and fixing other stuff like the utility of objectives and schemes.

Maybe I'll hang onto Hoffman for another while.

RatBot wrote:Yeah, man, I'm with you. I love the 40K universe... reading Black Library novels. I just wish GW made a decent set of rules with a lower barrier to entry, that they understood their market, their product, and the diverse industry they're a part of.

I bought Lords of Mars the other day! I hope they get Gods of Mars and the rest of the Bequin trilogy out before that pesky death spiral catches up with them.

But, yeah, the fact I only bought Lords of Mars now has to do with that impulse buy thing. I didn't fancy paying a whole extra tenner for a cardboard sandwich, and I've been waiting for the paperback. I snapped that up this week, despite having splashed out on a £100+ airbrush compressor minutes before, and feeling a bit tender in the wallet.

I'm like you. Despite the Age of Ward, I still like much of the Warhammer universes, and the look of most Warhammer minis. That's why I still hang around a GW-oriented forum and moan about what GW is doing. I own, play and enjoy other games with other minis and other settings, but I'd add the GW core two back into that mix in a heartbeat if they came to their senses and started acting like other gaming businesses - like they wanted happy customers and players. (And if it's not too late for them) In my first post in this topic I mentioned that I bought and have a lot of interest in ViDe:FuCo and Mayhem. It's primarily because I can use these generic, customisable, thoughtful, interesting, inexpensive and playtested rules as substitutes for awful Warhammer rules, but still use Warhammer minis* and the Warhammer settings.

*I managed to scrape quite a few of the excellent Seb Perbett skaven off ebay and other places, for not too much. Most spent on one mini was £10 for the Games Day exclusive warlord. It helps that Mayhem, despite being a mass battle game (actually built for mass battles) doesn't require the sheer numbers of miniatures as WHFB to get a decent game in; that resellers sometimes carve up IoB rather cheaply; and, of course, regular clanrats are 20 for £20.

 frozenwastes wrote:
I think the truth of the matter is that it's about selective memory. If you believe that new = more powerful you will remember the more powerful releases and tend not to remember the meh ones. But because balance is just not there at all, each release has a higher chance of being either too powerful or too weak. And if you already are predisposed to remembering the too powerful ones, it's only natural to come to DarkElf27's conclusions.

I had a further thought about this.

Imagine that X% of a given new codex is out of balance. And let's say that half of that is too strong and half is too weak. I've already made the case that selective memories will cause someone who thinks new release = more powerful to see the examples that support their conclusions.

But what if there's a selection pressure that goes beyond just having a selective memory?

What if people don't play crappy units? What if you don't see the half of the out of balance stuff on the table that sucks because it's not any good. It just dies and loses and does nothing and doesn't give a good game experience.

So the end result is that even if there's an equal distribution of unbalanced-strong and unbalanced-weak, the selection pressure of unbalanced-weak feeling impotent on the table top means that after a few games, those things are going to stay on the shelf.

The end result is that codex imbalance ends up pushing an arms race even in situations where unbalance is distributed equally between overly strong and overly weak units.

It's also more important for casual players than for competitive ones to have balance in the game. It sounds backwards I know, but competitive players will figure out the meta. They'll figure out what subset of each codex is worth taking and which is not. Whereas two casual players might take things based on what looks cool, what concepts they like or story/fiction reasons. And what happens if someone ends up selecting too many weak units compared to the opponent's strong units?

Just by random happenstance this is going to ruin a lot of people's gaming experience.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

Davor wrote:


This statement is SOOOO wrong and false. While yes they are turning over books faster, that is not a problem. I can't understand why people are saying a faster pace is bad. It's great. More to buy and you don't have to wait if you want a redo.

Yes, because I enjoy paying over $100 just to use models I've had for years, every year or so.... It is a problem, because they are trying to use a bucket to remove the water from the boat…

Gonna chime in with this as well. A well-done game system does not need to be updated every 22 months. Whether it's not playtested enough, or simply the result of progressive changes rather than a full overhaul is debatable, but It's been the better part of 2 decades since 40k underwent a major redo (3rd edition). From then on it's just been incremental, and when I realized it was going to be about $140-180 just to buy the rulebook and 2 Codices I needed to continue the game, I said no thanks.

Also "more to buy" has never been an incentive for me to stick with a game.

I will not buy more GW stuff, only some bitz. I will continue playing since I have a lot of stuff painted.

5th edition is my favorite edition, a little limited if compared to 6th.

I have Kings of War dwarf and Undead army, but there is no interest here in my community.

I am now in Dropzone Commander with a friend and possibly other players.

I left GW because of the decline in fluff and the increase in prices. I will always have a soft spot for their older fluff and the aesthetic and atmosphere of their games.

I've had a hard time moving on though, not because there isn't other games I am interested in but because after being burned by GW most of my gamer friends aren't interested in giving other companies a chance.

I love Warmachine/Hordes but it's prices aren't that far off from 40k and that makes my friend wary. I've also tried convincing them to try other games like Dropzone Commander, Malifaux, Infinity, Deadzone, etc. But they always have some kind of excuse. It's unfortunate, but I have become only a collector at this point.

If you switch to a project approach where you build both armies, paint them and host a game combined with a dinner, you'll get takers. Well, I always do.

 frozenwastes wrote:
If you switch to a project approach where you build both armies, paint them and host a game combined with a dinner, you'll get takers. Well, I always do.

I used that as a means to get players for an Airship Pirates game that I was running with my girlfriend - an in character steampunk dinner. (Recipes came from Fuel for the Boiler - a steampunk cookbook, and well worth reading.)

I am considering doing the same thing with Deadzone..... (Though the idea of opening up some post expiration MRE for the dinner amuses me... I think I will be a little less in character than that. )

The Auld Grump

I actually have been thinking about buying the Dropzone Commander, Infinity and Deadzone starter sets, painting them up and having them ready and just inviting people to come play.

It's how I do most of my historical projects. I have 15mm WW2 stuff that is individually based rather than based like Flames of War, I have 54mm Horse & Musket stuff, and when it comes to sci-fi I have a ton of 6mm (like Epic was) scale stuff. I'll pick miniatures, pick rules, bolster my terrain collection as needed and then start thinking about food and drinks to go with it.

A couple towns over there's a board game club that meets in a Royal Canadian Legion hall, and I've gone and set up a game there as well and just chatted and played other games, enjoyed some of the Legion's food and drink and run a game a couple times throughout the day for those interested.

I find this whole "I only want to play something that i can find opponents who will provide the other side" approach to be backwards. Why would I want my gaming of the things I enjoy to depend on other people buying and painting?

It's awesome when someone I got interested in a game buys into it themselves (I've been spreading Battletech around for using my 6mm scifi and like 8 locals ended up getting the newest starter set because of games I hosted and ran at gaming days), but I don't ever rely on it and certainly would never get into either a set of rules, a figure range or a historical era or genre because it's what other people want.

Zatsuku wrote:
I actually have been thinking about buying the Dropzone Commander, Infinity and Deadzone starter sets, painting them up and having them ready and just inviting people to come play.

I just picked up the DZC one myself. I know there's a few people already interested in playing at my LGS...

To echo Frozenwastes (who I wish would post some project logs or something, because the stuff he's doing always sounds interesting ) - I've switched to the "project" path, and it's very liberating. You get to make what you want, with the narrative you're into, and paint it all yourself. This is satisfying on it's own. Getting people to play with is a bonus in my view, and if they are enthused enough to join in, that's awesome, but not required.

Providing both sides is one way to do it, and certainly a must for certain obscure gaming. Historical gamers have long realized that if you're going to run a game representing a more obscure era or campaign, you've pretty much got to prepare both sides.

However, I think the best thing to do is to grow a group of gamers who are into indie gaming. If you steer clear of the big-games, you can do alot of different kinds of gaming for the same $. It's a time consuming process to build such a group but the results are worth it.

Our club plays the following games and most of us have acquired our own forces so only occasionally does someone have to borrow an army.
-Song of Blades and Heroes
-Of Gods and Mortals
-Tomorrows War
-Alpha Strike and Mech Attack (using rebased mechwarrior clix)
-WarEngine
-Full Thrust
-Nuclear Renaissance- and other post apoc games
-In The Emperor's Name
-and others.

We're able to do this because
-These rules are free or quite affordable
-most of the games above don't require too many miniatures
-Some games can use the same miniatures as others
-Most importantly, the club members know if the collect the minis for these games at least a few times a year (more for most games) they'll get a chance to play them.

A few times we have quit games, but it's almost always because we find a better ruleset to use the same minis with. I think it's the knowledge that a reliable club exists that supports these games that lets members know they're not just buying another batch of minis that won't get played. And this is a club that only uses painted minis, so you know the members are confident if they're buying and painting figs for games that you'll almost never see in your FLGS.

If you want to see what I'm on about, check the links in my sig.

Da Boss wrote:To echo Frozenwastes (who I wish would post some project logs or something, because the stuff he's doing always sounds interesting )

I'm only just figuring out how to make the whole picture taking thing work for miniatures, so soon I'll be able to do that. I just got new lamps and am figuring out gimp/paint.net.

I'm also planning on getting more organized around an Indy gaming club like Eilif recommended. And I might be selling my business and going semi-retired. While its been cool to travel and game across the land, I think club building in one place might be better.

 Eilif wrote:
Providing both sides is one way to do it, and certainly a must for certain obscure gaming. Historical gamers have long realized that if you're going to run a game representing a more obscure era or campaign, you've pretty much got to prepare both sides.

Once you get out of the GW pricing mindset it's a lot more palatable too. I'd never dream of collecting a matched pair of WHFB armies, but I've got matched sets of armies for 15mm WW2/Ancients as well as a few skirmish games, most costing well under £100 all in (rules + 2 factions).

Herzlos wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
Providing both sides is one way to do it, and certainly a must for certain obscure gaming. Historical gamers have long realized that if you're going to run a game representing a more obscure era or campaign, you've pretty much got to prepare both sides.

Once you get out of the GW pricing mindset it's a lot more palatable too. I'd never dream of collecting a matched pair of WHFB armies, but I've got matched sets of armies for 15mm WW2/Ancients as well as a few skirmish games, most costing well under £100 all in (rules + 2 factions).

Very True.
Despite my emphasis on club building, I just looked at my list and realized that I have 2 (or more) sides for almost every one of the games I listed. Between bargain miniature lines and buying used and many of those forces were acquired for less than the price of one GW infantry unit!

I've found it very easy to justify new games by comparing them to a Leman Russ Battle Tank (£31), which is more than most rulebooks / starter sets cost these days

 RatBot wrote:

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
Am I a rarity? Just a week ago I got back into the 40k universe with a purchase of the re-released Dark Vengeance set.

I mainly make and paint rather than game so the duff rules do not mean much to me, but for a great price I get a lot of great plastic miniatures to paint up.

I've always said that GW makes (mostly) very good models, and the price per kit is (mostly) not more than I would pay for an individual kit, though this is rapidly changing. The problem for me is that the rules are not very good, IMO, and the cost for a "complete" army at the standard game size is far too much. The rules are poorly written, clunky, and not balanced. It comes closest to being balanced at around 1500 to 2000 points, where the average single army plus rules cost is between $550 and $700, and that's the bare minimum rules required to play (Rulebook+Codex).

In comparison, for that price I can get, say, The Warmachine rules and two to four 35 or 50 point armies (the points values most commonly played in WM/H), or god even knows how many Infinity squadrons or Malifaux crews. Even in larger scale games like Warzone Resurrection or Wargods of Aegyptus I can get two armies for the cost of one 40K army.

I would never seriously argue that a 40K army should be as cheap as an Infinity force. That would be silly and unreasonable. But the steep cost of a full army PLUS the steep startup costs PLUS the poor rules PLUS the rising quality of competitor's miniatures, which in some cases surpass GW's, makes 40K a very unattractive option for me, and looking at the lastest financial statement, I don't think I'm alone.

Other games may be more costly per model, but that's rapidly becoming untrue (Flash Gitz and Dire Avengers, I'm looking at you!), but the other issue is that I'll pay $50, 60, even more for a full unit of infantry, but generally with GW's stuff you need multiple copies of the same kit to be effective in the game, which is, again, more than I care to pay. Yeah, the, say, Gatorman Posse in Warmahordes is $45 for 5 models. But I'll never need more than one Gatorman Posse. Those Flash Gitz aren't going to be great with less than 10 of them. I'm gonna need three+ boxes of Tactical Marines for my Space Marine army.

I will say that GW still has most of the competition beat in terms of customization and extraneous bitz, but I'm not keen on the idea of paying a premium for bitz I'm never gonna use, ever.

Really, and again, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this,for me, the models are only a part of the equation. I like miniatures. I also like background, aesthetics, rules, value for money (admittedly a very nebulous concept), etc, with value-for-money and rules being the most important thing for me. With that said, I still place value on aesthetics and fluff (hence why I buy models instead of playing games with plastic army men or paper cutouts or what have you). It's just that GW doesn't have the proper balance of these elements for me. I will say that kit-for-kit Warmachine is also pretty damned expensive.

This is spot on. My issue with 40k is twofold: The crappy rules and the high price when you factor in what you actually need for a normal sized force. $40 for 10 Marines isn't terrible in the grand scheme of things, but it's when you figure that you need 3 boxes, plus 3x Rhinos, plus a Captain, and a tank, and whatever else for a normal army. Yes, Privateer's boxed sets can get pricey, especially the metals, but it's balanced by the idea that you typically don't need more than one box except in rare cases. For instance, I recently priced out doing a themed force in Warmachine (eKreoss, so Exemplars galore). It came to about $320, which is on the high side for a 35-point army, but still that's about 50% less than a 1500 point 40k army for basically anything except maybe something like Draigowing or 3x Imperial Knights.

That's my problem in general. It's the combination of poor rules and needing a few hundred for a normal army. Compare that to something like Bolt Action, where a normal 1,000 point army is under $150; not for a minuscule demo game force, but for the regular size game. That's the size and price point 40k should be hitting.

Rumors are that Infinity's Operation Ice Storm is outselling 7th edition. I pre-ordered it and didn't buy 7th edition. Anyone else?

 MWHistorian wrote:
Rumors are that Infinity's Operation Ice Storm is outselling 7th edition. I pre-ordered it and didn't buy 7th edition. Anyone else?

I'm waiting for the new Inf main rulebook and I have no intention of buying 7th edition. If I needed the starter box, I'd 100% purchase.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
Rumors are that Infinity's Operation Ice Storm is outselling 7th edition. I pre-ordered it and didn't buy 7th edition. Anyone else?

I'm waiting for the new Inf main rulebook and I have no intention of buying 7th edition. If I needed the starter box, I'd 100% purchase.

This^^

I just won't buy the starter box because I don't play any of those factions and the terrain is going to be released separately. But I'll 100% buy the 3rd edition rulebook when it comes out, even if the rules are free.

I don't own any Infinity at all, so I'll be buying the starter box when I can!