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 CT GAMER wrote:

 Vermis wrote:
And that works alright for John Blanche paintings, but is as boring as all get-out for a tabletop miniatures game.

Luckily you have plenty of other choices for how you can spend your free time.

Isnt life great?

It surely is, and there surely are. Come and join me in some of them. You might be surprised.

 Eilif wrote:

BeAfraid wrote:
Infinity is basically the only thing out there for us Hard Sci-fi fans, and it is EXPENSIVE. Almost 40K Forgeworld expensive.

But... As I have always said... I care not how expensive it is, as long as it is of the highest quality...

Do you mean the only "Package" game that is available for hard sci-fi fans? Because while they may not have the same circulation or figs/fluff/rules-in-one-package as infinity, there are alot of great rules and minis for hard sci-fi. Have you played Tomorrow's War or 5150 Star Army? Great rulesets and there are also many companies with amazing figure lines that are far more "hard-sci-fi" than anything in Infinity's figure lines which are beautiful to be sure, but still have all the unrealistic anime traits of boob-armor, bare midriffs, open cleavage and oddly short pants/skirts, etc on what are supposedly combatants.

I found Tomorrow's War to basically be Iraq in Space. Same thing with 5150.

The authors sure know there stuff for a modern army.

But they fall completely flat on predictive technologies (admitted, I have a bit of an unfair advantage, as I know Google's Director of Technology Engineering on a first name basis, just as a start), and they seem to have completely ignored Ron Arkin's (The guy who wrote the book on Robotic Warfare - literally.... Wrote it for the USA, EU, and NATO) predictions about autonomous robotic systems.... and that is saying nothing about their complete lack of understanding of nanotechnology and meta-materials (materials that don't act at all like what they are. Solids that are invisible, liquids that are gaseous or solid, solids that are gaseous, any material that can trap any other material inside it at the molecular level - so stuff would pass through it like it wast there - etc.).

Plus, they lack any committed base and miniature line. "Packaged" does make things easier.

Traveller is the closest to being able to assemble something like that, but it would remain a "Retro-'70's" game, with little in the way of real technological advancement between then and now.

BeAfraid wrote:
...But what we really need is a 10mm/15mm game like FOW for Sci-Fi.
MB

Planetfall, Grunts 15mm, Dropzone commander, Future War commander, etc….

Many of these options require a bit of out-of-the-box acquiring of figs and vehicles, but Infinity is far from the only game in town.

More of the same. Modern combat dressed up as Sci-Fi.

Even Infinity has a bit of that going on, but it isn't that very far-future.

The problem really is that we are past the event horizon of what some call "The Technological Singularity." Thus, predicting what is on the other side is impossible until we come out the other side.

MB

@BeAfraid,
There are several types of war fare to base a game upon.These are well known tropes by the players.

The players expectations are set by the type of units they command, even in scifi games.

EG
If it is a large space ship game they expect it to be more battle ships in space type game play.
If the space ships are small and agile , the players expect more of a aircraft dog fight type game play.

In the same way with land warfare, the type of units and how they are equipped and organized determines how the players expect the game to play.

If the units in the game map closely to organisation and equipment used by modern units(1930 to present day.)
Then players expect the game play to follow modern warfare.

If the units in the game map closely to organisation and equipment used by ancient units .(5000 BC to 1900AD.)
Then players expect the game to follow ancient warfare .

So the only way scifi war fare would be radically different to modern warfare, would be if range weapons became ineffective vs the armour of the time, and the ONLY way to reliably kill any thing would be to swamp it in assault.

Most games where range weapons are used in a supporting role like this are referred to as 'fantasy' not 'scifi.'(In my experience .)

BeAfraid wrote:

I found Tomorrow's War to basically be Iraq in Space. Same thing with 5150.

The authors sure know there stuff for a modern army.

But they fall completely flat on predictive technologies (admitted, I have a bit of an unfair advantage, as I know Google's Director of Technology Engineering on a first name basis, just as a start), and they seem to have completely ignored Ron Arkin's (The guy who wrote the book on Robotic Warfare - literally.... Wrote it for the USA, EU, and NATO) predictions about autonomous robotic systems.... and that is saying nothing about their complete lack of understanding of nanotechnology and meta-materials (materials that don't act at all like what they are. Solids that are invisible, liquids that are gaseous or solid, solids that are gaseous, any material that can trap any other material inside it at the molecular level - so stuff would pass through it like it wast there - etc.).

Plus, they lack any committed base and miniature line. "Packaged" does make things easier.

BeAfraid wrote:
...But what we really need is a 10mm/15mm game like FOW for Sci-Fi.
MB

Planetfall, Grunts 15mm, Dropzone commander, Future War commander, etc….

Many of these options require a bit of out-of-the-box acquiring of figs and vehicles, but Infinity is far from the only game in town.

More of the same. Modern combat dressed up as Sci-Fi.

Even Infinity has a bit of that going on, but it isn't that very far-future.

The problem really is that we are past the event horizon of what some call "The Technological Singularity." Thus, predicting what is on the other side is impossible until we come out the other side.

MB

I think you're probably right, though while it does have ubiquity going for it, I don't think Infinity is any better than the others as far as it's take on what is "futuristic". Further as far as minis goes there are still much more future-realistic options. As you say though, even most of the "hard" sci-fi rulesets are very much based on what we know of combat today. I'm not sure there are many rulesets that really get into "future".

One question, though is would you really want that? How much detail would be required to really add the levels of detail required to simulate the AI, drones and electronic warfare and internet combat that might make up future warfare. Not to mention that future combat might not involve many humans on the ground at all. I'm not sure that's a game that alot of folks are interested in. Yet, Iraq, vietnam or ww2 (not to mention high-fantasy) in space continue to sell pretty well.

I don't know if it's the whole package, but my buddy mentioned that Strike Legion has a pretty good mechanic for internet combat. Might be worth looking at.
http://www.wargamevault.com/product/87808/Strike-Legion-Main-Rulebook
There's also Saganami Island Tactical Simulator if you like hard space combat, but you couldn't pay me to play that.

 Eilif wrote:

BeAfraid wrote:

I found Tomorrow's War to basically be Iraq in Space. Same thing with 5150.

The authors sure know there stuff for a modern army.

But they fall completely flat on predictive technologies (admitted, I have a bit of an unfair advantage, as I know Google's Director of Technology Engineering on a first name basis, just as a start), and they seem to have completely ignored Ron Arkin's (The guy who wrote the book on Robotic Warfare - literally.... Wrote it for the USA, EU, and NATO) predictions about autonomous robotic systems.... and that is saying nothing about their complete lack of understanding of nanotechnology and meta-materials (materials that don't act at all like what they are. Solids that are invisible, liquids that are gaseous or solid, solids that are gaseous, any material that can trap any other material inside it at the molecular level - so stuff would pass through it like it wast there - etc.).

Plus, they lack any committed base and miniature line. "Packaged" does make things easier.

BeAfraid wrote:
...But what we really need is a 10mm/15mm game like FOW for Sci-Fi.
MB

Planetfall, Grunts 15mm, Dropzone commander, Future War commander, etc….

Many of these options require a bit of out-of-the-box acquiring of figs and vehicles, but Infinity is far from the only game in town.

More of the same. Modern combat dressed up as Sci-Fi.

Even Infinity has a bit of that going on, but it isn't that very far-future.

The problem really is that we are past the event horizon of what some call "The Technological Singularity." Thus, predicting what is on the other side is impossible until we come out the other side.

MB

I think you're probably right, though while it does have ubiquity going for it, I don't think Infinity is any better than the others as far as it's take on what is "futuristic". Further as far as minis goes there are still much more future-realistic options. As you say though, even most of the "hard" sci-fi rulesets are very much based on what we know of combat today. I'm not sure there are many rulesets that really get into "future".

One question, though is would you really want that? How much detail would be required to really add the levels of detail required to simulate the AI, drones and electronic warfare and internet combat that might make up future warfare. Not to mention that future combat might not involve many humans on the ground at all. I'm not sure that's a game that alot of folks are interested in. Yet, Iraq, vietnam or ww2 (not to mention high-fantasy) in space continue to sell pretty well.

I don't know if it's the whole package, but my buddy mentioned that Strike Legion has a pretty good mechanic for internet combat. Might be worth looking at.
http://www.wargamevault.com/product/87808/Strike-Legion-Main-Rulebook
There's also Saganami Island Tactical Simulator if you like hard space combat, but you couldn't pay me to play that.

Strike Legion is very much like Infinity in that respect, but for larger scaled engagements (Strike Legion is capable of handling Companies and larger).

But since the thread was asking about 28mm - 32mm miniature games, I assumed they meant Skirmish, and not larger company based actions, which really bog down when trying to apply that level of detail with that number of models. Abstractions are needed, which then tend to imply the use of a smaller scale of miniatures to open up table space to better play.

The old Avalon Hill game Squad Leader was among the best at representing this level of play in a variety of levels of detail and intricacy.

So vehicles in such a game tend to be overkill, or objectives, rather, than in 40K, elements in play themselves (But 40K is really Fantasy, and not Sci-Fi. It has lasers and such, but you could just as easily substitute the Space Marines with Warrior Sorcerors casting Magic Missiles, and the game would remain unchanged).

Infinity also reflects something of my favorite genre: Anime.... So I have a bias, and a large one.

Specifically, it takes its queues from Kōkaku Kitōdai (Ghost-in-the-Shell - interesting that the name of the show in Japanese has nothing at all to do with "Ghost-in-the-Shell." Kōkaku Kitōdai translates as "Mobile Armored Police"), where cybernetics and the Web/Internet is ubiquitous and vastly expanded (nd multi-layered) from our current conception of these things.

MB

As regards model scale it is pretty obvious that the only way to cram in more detail that people can actually see and paint is to make the figures larger. 40K achieves its level of model detail by making most models much larger than 28mm. 28mm is roughly equivalent to 1/56th scale, but the dimensions of 40K models are nearer 1/48th and 1/35th scale; that's why they are called "heroic".

Equally obviously, a figure that is 40mm wide sitting on a battlefield where 1mm equals 1 yard is far too large to represent a single man. The figure occupies the area where a fireteam, squad or even a weak platoon might deploy IRL.

 Vermis wrote:

 CT GAMER wrote:

 Vermis wrote:
And that works alright for John Blanche paintings, but is as boring as all get-out for a tabletop miniatures game.

Luckily you have plenty of other choices for how you can spend your free time.

Isnt life great?

It surely is, and there surely are. Come and join me in some of them. You might be surprised.

Ive played more than I can rememeber at this point in the past 35 years or so and I'll probably try a few more before I die.

Still prefer 40K over anything Ive played for numerous reasons at this point however…

I would love a popular 10mm~15mm scifi game with artillery strikes and pew pews and woosh noises. I wish Epic was still a thing. :(

I can't believe the amount of "No" votes on this. What, are people afraid of someone coming in and questioning their poor, defenseless 40k? Why else would you be opposed to more options?

OP, I feel for you (I have a very similar mindset). I honestly think that this upcoming game might be exactly what you're looking for (I don't get to say that often either!)

Check it out

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/644194.page

 Accolade wrote:
I can't believe the amount of "No" votes on this. What, are people afraid of someone coming in and questioning their poor, defenseless 40k? Why else would you be opposed to more options?

OP, I feel for you (I have a very similar mindset). I honestly think that this upcoming game might be exactly what you're looking for (I don't get to say that often either!)

Check it out

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/644194.page

Umm... I'm willing to bet the no votes are mostly form people like my who understand what a army-scale game really looks and plays like. Not the OMG 40K might lose sells and players group as the think 28mm+ is OK for Army-scale on anything smaller then a basketball court.

Apocalypse anyone, and it still failed to allow anything other the target priority just like 40K.

 Accolade wrote:
I can't believe the amount of "No" votes on this. What, are people afraid of someone coming in and questioning their poor, defenseless 40k? Why else would you be opposed to more options?

The poll isn't asking if people are in favour of there being more games. It's asking if there is a 'need' for them.

So a 'no' vote isn't being 'opposed to more options'. It's stating an opinion that more options aren't necessary.

But why would more options not be necessary? When would more options ever be a bad thing? That's what I'm not understanding.

 Accolade wrote:
But why would more options not be necessary? When would more options ever be a bad thing?

These two things are not the same.

More options are not necessary if you are happy with the current options. That doesn't mean that more options are a bad thing... just that they're not necessary.

I like 40k - always have done from the very beginning

We play an adpated version - 6.5 and are msotly happy with it.

That being said - I'd be interested in another system bit on its own and one that could work with 40k background - and one that other people would play............

 Accolade wrote:
But why would more options not be necessary? When would more options ever be a bad thing? That's what I'm not understanding.

If there was an infinite number of 28mm army game rules on the market how long would it take you and your friends to pick the best one?

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Accolade wrote:
But why would more options not be necessary? When would more options ever be a bad thing? That's what I'm not understanding.

If there was an infinite number of 28mm army game rules on the market how long would it take you and your friends to pick the best one?

Not too long, I'd go to places like Dakka to get reviews and opinions to figure out which ones were the best. But then I do that with any big investment.

With 3d printing, sculpting, kickstarter, and all the other goodies of the internet, I think there is room, at least in the near future, for another sci-fi 28mm game. I cringe at the thought of a new player having to make such a big decision given the costs of starting, but I think have competition will motivate better decision making by GW.

I believe the mere controversy started by an upstart company with a good backing for the sake of rustling GW's 40k jimmies is enough to benefit the gaming community as a whole.

At the very least, it will break attention, fresh blood, and money/investment to the industry/community in the short term.

Alchemist1422 wrote:
Wow!

Thank you very much everyone! That is a TON more feedback than I ever hoped for.

it really is so much better suited for smaller model scales, like 15mm or less.

When choosing the scale we though about several things. 1) Its hard to make distinctive, unique models in a small scale - details will simply be too miniscule. 2) small scale tends to remove "individual" feeling of models, placing them on stands a-la AQotMF (btw that game is neat) or DZC. Does this not bother you?

I find 15mm is good for a few platoons worth in force sized games, larger games I prefer 6mm and 10mm is pretty nice as well

Do you enjoy painting infantry at that scale? I personally find it hard to do, not enough space for individualization...

I am assuming you are looking at starting up your own game system and miniatures range? if so I would highly recommend going skirmish for 28mm or if you dead set on a larger scale game , then going with a smaller miniature scale.

A thing to think about for sure... I wonder, what do you understand under "Skirmksh". Is 30 minies on a table + a couple of tanks "Skirmish" for you?

To summarise - dear Dakka, thank you once again. In a couple of days I got MANY great ideas. What I think may be a cool idea to think over now: a setting that could allow for easy branching into different scales, with the default skirmish 28 mm, widened 10-15mm army scale. This will also allow to have a core system that will be changed in particular sections when it deals with a particular scale (i.e. switching from individual model/fireteam approach to platoon/squad level interaction).

Thank you for your reply too my feed back, what I wanted too add for the first part, is when you focus on a large scale game the focus of the rules and of what the player should be looking at , should shift to a larger perspective, Commanding a Company of units should be at the viewing scale of a company like Flames of War and Critical masses game. If your going for a full army scale, then scales like DBA, Dropzone Commander , Epic and such games is were your player focus should be at, and hence individual characters do not matter as much. You can still do a high diversity of infantry , however they do not need an outrageous level of detail for the game focus is on a full army and not an individual soldier.

Small scale is designed for larger scale games and larger scale miniatures fit much better with smaller scale games, could anyone imagine playing X wing with a 28mm scaled X wing and tie fighter? what about armada? Firestorm armada? yes it would be quite impossible to do indeed. So no it does not "bother" me with playing with smaller scale miniatures as my focus is on my full army , sweeping advances, strategic decisions and commanding a larger front than focusing on one individual soldier. Hope that clears up my stance more on this area and can convince you to take a look at your game scale as a whole instead of individual units.

I highly recommend that you try a game of DBA and or Epic , I Do enjoy painting infantry at all scales, I paint a quality level needed for that scale, less focus on extreme detail the smaller you go and more focus on detail the larger you go, this is one of the reasons people enjoy games like infinity , because they do not need to paint so many miniatures and can focus on improving their painting skills. 15mm and smaller are a joy to paint and I find quite easy to paint up a group and yet still maintain a decent quality of detail for that scale.

"... I wonder, what do you understand under "Skirmksh". Is 30 minies on a table + a couple of tanks "Skirmish" for you? " I feel Skirmish games have a field of sizes they can cover, however my personal view, a skirmish game becomes no longer a skirmish game when it reaches over a platoon in size ( 4 squads is the average platoon size depending on which country you are in). I feel vehicles usually do not work well in skirmish games with a few rare exceptions , battle suits are fine, but giant mecha's are just as extreme as having tanks at this scale I personally feel. So I would say at the scale of 30 units and 2 tanks that 15mm would be the better spot, make it so units don't die too fast or hitting an enemy is less likely and you have a game with high tactical depth and a real focus on strategy over powerful units.

I also say this because from my experience and knowing as we ready things for our kickstarter, that doing such a large scale game requires a heavy investment, tanks would have to be resin or plastic, and plastic is way , way too expensive to pay for molds ( 5K - 20K for a single mold!!!) it also limits your ability to grow the range outside of kickstarters one of my concerns for such games as Wrath of Kings which I feel are going to struggle to expand their game in plastic unless they do another kickstarter. One reason why Infinity does metal is it is affordable and they can then create more units in their game.

Focusing on a smaller scale can give you the flexibility you need to grow and adapt to what your customers want, Every single successful company including GW have mostly started with smaller scale games and then worked their way up to expanding to larger scale games. However also I would say to consider the direction of the current wargaming consumer market place, a lot of people want to have fairly quick games , 45 mins to 1 Hr , doing a skirmish game makes this a very easy goal to reach, doing a large scale wargame in 28mm makes things take much longer and this time range can be difficult to achieve ( it can be done however). Also will you sacrifice miniature detail and quality? ( would be a good idea to go with true scale over outdated heroic scale IMHO) if you want to produce a lot of units at a large scale you may have to consider it. Like PPs 3 - 4 poses in a pack of 10 for example.

I hope this helps more with your decisions and plans , I would also recommend to start with a single miniature pack to get an idea of all the costs involved and to gain familiarity with all the steps to create a new miniature which will help you greatly when you go to produce a full game .

with best regards - Shawn.

Pretty much sums up what I said, with some variations.

The reasons we have a neccesity for another 28mm - 32mm game is because the current games are so very limited in scope.

And, ideally, we need some games that are using smaller scales (such as Epid), but which cover a broader domain (company, battalion, division, etc.) than the 28mm "Skirmish" game.

The reasons I mentioned "needing" another 28mm game is because I already primarily do Striker[i]/Striker II[/i] in 15mm and 6mm for Company to Regimental level combat (still at a 1:1 man:miniature), and things like 40k or Infinity are just impossible at that scale. For the Battalion scaled Striker II you would have no space on any table for moving miniatures with around 1,200 men present on the table (for each side - well, depending, higher tech forces will represent a Battalion with only 200 men and several hundred drones), not including the support personnel.

But there are Ample choices for Army Level play (even if somewhat constrained by their author's biases), but there are so few choices for 28mm.

MB

Alchemist1422 wrote:
Dear Dakka,

For several years I was only a mere reader here, without registration or a single post. Now the time has come for me to ask your opinion.

After 11 years of 40 K I found myself in a situation when I crave for something new (especially since the Warhammer of the year 2015 lost the majority of fun that I used to have from it), but the market simply cannot offer a competitive 28-32 mm army-scale alternative. There are many, many beautiful skirmishes and tactical games (like Infinity or X-wing) but not a single of them offers me an opportunity to move around 50+ soldiers/monsters/etc. DZC is cool, but that's 15-mm, too small for my tastes.

Hence, the question that bothers me. Am I alone? Do the people actually share my wishing for a new sci-fi army scale miniature game? Or does 40 K satisfy all and every need as it is?

It would be great to know your opinions. After all that I read here I can say that almost all of them are smart, logical and valuable.

I also ask all this since I am also a game rules designer that participates in a couple of projects, and it would be great to know if a system mentioned above could be viable in these difficult times, and it creation of it may be an option for investment of money and time...

Best regards and thank you!h
Pavel

I'm with Polonius and perhaps others who don't want to buy more models but want to use my existing investment in 40K models with better rules.

I'm also a game designer and I have designed a game to do just that. It shares some mechanics with "Tomorrow's War". Its quick, clean, and intuitive, and loads of fun. It can easily handle large games as well as small. I can share details if you're interested.

"Need" is probably too strong a word but yea, more games of quality are always welcome. I don't care for army scale games in 28mm personally but I know plenty of people love large armies. As long as everything is well-designed and it makes people happy I see no reason not to welcome the existence of any new game.