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JohnHwangDD wrote:But seriously, who stops at 500 pts or WM or 1500 pts of 40k and calls it their main game? Anyone?

DD: Sometimes I think that you get off on being deliberately obtuse.

1. Lots of people play games of WM at 500 and 50k at 1500. This is usually due to one of two common factors: 1. Time available to game. 2. Models available to game. When playing WM, I play at the 500 point level almost exclusively as larger games limit the number of games I can play in one afternoon.

2. GW's ruleset, while having a lot of factions, and a lot of different unit types is extremely homogenous and limited in terms of what those different unit types can actually do. This is by design as having more complicated rules would bog down gameplay. Warmachine and Infinity are model level skirmish level games with emphasis on interactions between individual models, and WH and WH40k are squad based skirmish games with interactions between squads. They really are different animals and as such, one system can not be said to be inherently better than the other. Where as one might assert that WM has "complex, clunky rules" and is overly combo based, one could just as easily say that player options in 40k are rudimentary and overly streamlined. It is just a matter of personal preference.

I play 40k because it is widely supported and it is easy to get a game in. I find PP's games more intelectually stimulating to play as the increased interactions between models alows for more options and dramatic comebacks.

I feel like this question is really asking "What is stopping you from buying into another system?"

I think most people here would try something if you handed them the rules and the models/playing pieces. We're all gamers. That's not the issue, or the thrust of the TC, I think.

Nothing has stopped me from buying into new systems. I bought into Flames of War in 2008, and so far in 2009 I have bought into two games, Star Wars Pocketmodels and AT-43.


Last year a friend convinced me to start Flames of War. I was very skeptical. It was going to be about $350 to start it off with a 1,500-point army (I go all in or not at all), but he didn't want to play the Germans as he's Jewish and needed someone to join in, and he's a buddy so I bit the bullet and said "What the hell."

I can't say we got lucky, really, because FoW is a superlative game. I prefer it over anything else I've ever played - but I can't say I'd done much research beforehand, I just like WW II history and therefore loved the models. Turns out the game is awesome, and now 10 people in my club play it with more looking into joining us, so now the investment feels justified. We're even cranking out 15mm WW II terrain and people are discussing their second armies already, moving from Late War to Mid-War Africa.


With the Star Wars Pocketmodels, I just love Star Wars, and the same buddy was playing that, and so I picked up a bunch of them cheap online...then played the game and instantly hated it. Again, I bought in because I loved the little styrene ships, and what a novel idea. I wasn't aware of the Pirates game until after I got my hands on the Pocketmodels, but the idea of little push-together styrene ships seemed awesome.

Game sucked, am almost done selling everything. Friend has his crap in a tupperware container somewhere.


With AT-43 I was the insitgator on that one, mostly because I love toys and here were toys with rules and everything was dead cheap online. Bought three armies with the intention of pioneering the game at my club, my buddy from FoW and the PocketModels joined me (my turn to cost him some money, I decided!), played a bunch of games with each army I had, he dropped out after one marathon gaming session because he hated the rules, another friend bought a Therian army and during his second full game actually wanted to walk away from the table, and the most reaction I got out of people at the club was "Wow, those containers are cool."

I also decided the game sucked, and now am selling everything except some of the shipping containers which I am repainting to be Imperial Guard terrain in green with Imperial Aquila in tune with the upcoming Planetstrike expansion. Something good came out of it. AT-43 terrain is easily re-painted and re-purposed for 40K.

So, in buying into new games I went 1 for 3, which is a bad enough percentage for me NOW to be gun-shy. What will stop me from buying into another system? Fear that the game might suck, the need to purchase models or playing pieces to find out for myself, and lack of a sizeable player base.


If I ever think about buying into a different game again, I will do the following:

1) If it is a game I am considering pioneering I will find every review utterly trashing the gameplay. You learn much more from negative reviews than positive reviews, IMHO. My wife never buys any item of clothing, piece of electronics, or makes hotel reservations for us until she's seen every a-hole ripped into that item or place that anyone could rip. Then she decides. If you can't find too much negative info, then it might be worth it.

One lesson I have learned in regards to negative reviews is that if you really can't find ANY then it probably means that only the fanboys are talking about it, and that tells you something in and of itself. You can find pages and pages of people ripping apart 40K and WHFB gameplay because so many people have played it - so you know that the game has spread far and wide and that the player-base is large.


2) I will see whether I can get my hands on the models from someone else, and not just for one demo game, but someone with a DEEP model collection for an army who can lend me a book so that I can try building armies myself and see what I think for many, many games. If the gameplay is good enough to keep me coming back for more demos, then I might be onto something.

I won't decide whether to buy into a game ever again until I've been able to test its depths of gameplay and give myself ample time to find all the problems I can find.

I don't mind spending time playing a new game because it puts the existing games I play in a different light, and helps me appreciate their good points more. As a result of playing FoW, I appreciate the speed with which a 40K game goes. As a result of playing AT-43, I appreciate the superlative quality and the rules support and the player base that 40K gives me.

I do mind having to spend my money to learn that a game sucks for me.

If I cannot find someone with enough enthusiasm for the game to own multiple armies, or someone willing to bring someone else along with him while he lends me his armies, then that will speak to whether there's a player base, which brings us to...


3) I will see how large the established player-base is.

My intention in purchasing three AT-43 armies was that I would be demo'ing the game to people and hopefully getting them into the game. I won't ever do that again. Trying to start up a community around a specific game system is a massive pain in the ass for me, and I have better things to do with my time. Like posting on message forums.

I also am not willing to keep odd hours or travel long distances to find opponents for a new game. I could wake up on Saturday mornings at the crack of dawn or travel an hour+ straight from work once a month to get AT-43 games in and have a bunch of opponents, but that begins to become work to go so far out of my way just to play a game. I have a feeling that any niche system is going to require something along the same lines to find opponents for it.

My gaming club meets on Thursdays, and is huge. If enough people there play a game, I will look into it. I've never played WHFB, and plenty of people have armies to lend me. I'm not interested in painting up fantasy stuff but I would learn the game as most people play it. A bunch of people play Warmachine, and it seems like a pretty popular game, so if people lend me books and models I'll try that, as well.

Words of wisdom. You're quite true though i know i'll fall into the trap of buying in the spur of the moment 'something'.

Opponents for me as well, not willing to spend serious funds on a game for it to sit on the shelf.

At the moment I have two opponents, my wife and a friend who can barely get a bi-monthly game of 40K together due to family commitments, which is fair enough.

I'd love to play Flames of War, but my wife refuses to play games based on Military history, and my friend isn't able to look at any other systems tbh.

I keep glancing towards AT-43 but not sure that will happen although partially thats due to rules issues when we briefly tried Confrontation. They need to employ some better rule converters in my opinion.

Apart from those not much interests me, Warmachine is no good as I hate the Jacks, I think they look awful.


The only hope I have atm are my sons, just got into Stars Wars Miniatures as the eldest is a huge fan of Clone Wars series.
I've had to dumb it down a little as he's five, but he loves the game, even though he insists on being the baddies. (I wanted the baddies.. *mope*) So hopefully in six odd years I'll have someone interested in trying oddball stuff with me.

Hehe sounds familiar. i mostly need to rely on my 'little' brother to get games in and a trimonthly visit to the gamestore :p

And i started the SW mini's a while just stopped as i couldn't keep up.

LunaHound wrote:Its the fear.

Fear of spending money into a game to have it disappear from the market , or lack of people to play with.

Play Battletech. It has been around longer, and had fewer rule changes.

@Keezus: Agreed on all points. Perhaps the illogical points values comparisons will fade away in MkII, That they exist now is dumb as 500 points of 40k is nothing like 500 points of Warmachine. Flames of War makes a reasonable direct comparison point for point with 40k.

Over 20-something years of gaming I've picked up lots of different systems. (I dread to think how much money has been spent in the process)

The crucial factor is whether whatever my local gaming club at the time continued to play it.

Very few lasted more than 6 months. Quite a lot lasted less than that.

The games I'm still coming back to every so often are Blood Bowl, Space Hulk & Full Thrust. The Star Wars TCG (from Decipher) is suggested fairly often but deck building is an enormous chore if you aren't very familiar with all of the cards which makes it very difficult to dip back into.

Yeah over here the SW TCG is remembered VERY fondly too.

Trasvi wrote:In Western Australia, GW is the only wargaming company. I believe some other miniatures are stocked in small amounts by one store that has been forced into a low-vis basement across the other side of the capital city from the GW store, but thats just rumor.

Around here most people do a double-take if you ask them if they've heard of Rackham or Confrontation, or even Battlefleet Gothic or Bloodbowl. Hell most people haven't heard of Dark Eldar, and there's only one other guy I know who knows what squats were.

So around here, I play GW because there is literally no other real wargaming alternative.

I beg to differ on that one yes there is the evil ones here and yes i did played there systems a long long time ago (1st ed WH40k Epic Space marine 3rd ed WHFB) but there are other clubs in W.A. that rarely play or even look at 40k and WHFB they play PP games like Warmachine and Hordes as well as Flames of War and historical systems i myself am a big fan of Star Grunt 2 by Ground Zero Games i been playing it in 15mm at the moment its great fun and cheap too oh yea and the Low-vis basement gaming store was there long before GW turned up in W.A