Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Gue'vesa Emissary wrote:
Saying "it's narrow and short-sighted to focus on the game" is not fine, that's telling other people that they're having fun the wrong way.

No it isn't. His comment was that in his opinion focusing on the game to the detriment of the artistic is not ideal. Having an opinion does not automatically equate to everybody with a different opinion being wrong. You're entirely allowed to disagree.

 insaniak wrote:

Gue'vesa Emissary wrote:
Saying "it's narrow and short-sighted to focus on the game" is not fine, that's telling other people that they're having fun the wrong way.

No it isn't. His comment was that in his opinion focusing on the game to the detriment of the artistic is not ideal. Having an opinion does not automatically equate to everybody with a different opinion being wrong. You're entirely allowed to disagree.

This was indeed my point, Insaniak.

You could argue different people have different ideas/experience of what the hobby actually is, so its hard to know if the "GW hobby" is worth it.

Since we are only safe talking about our personal experience I can only talk about the sculpting side of things. For me it's worth it because I find that one plastic GW miniature alone can give me countless hours of converting modifying with greenstuff or kit bashing. Can I do that with other manufacturers? Yes but material is key and sharp plastic production is not common on competition. I dont buy FW or Finecast because here I find the material quality is not worth it.

I gave up on supporting GW gaming because codex and new editions got out of control and I find its not worth investing in rulesets that change so often, specially when during covid no one could actually meet and play for 2 years... We could say I found smaller rulesets that float my boat. I still get some dexes I like for fluff though.

Thats my 2 cents.
Just dip into GW like myself and cherry pick, don't stress about the GW way either. Nothing wrong if you like it all, and want all in. Sometimes playing games with friends is priceless.

From a painter sculptor perspective GW models are not the most expensive either so theres that too.

 Eilif wrote:
The canvas example may seem like a reasonable justification for the artist painting a few figures to an extremely high standards. There are some really impressive and unique creations coming out of Games workshop

However it falls flat for the person purchasing the miniatures for their intended use as Wargaming miniatures. How many canvases does it take to make an army?

.

I don't think it falls flat at all.

Firstly if I may, its a bit presumptive to declare as an absolute that their 'intended purpose' is as 'gaming pieces'. Apparently 80% of buyers don't game. It can be, absolutely. It might be your priority and thats totally fair as well. No judgement at all from me. But plenty folks see them as both gaming pieces and modelling pieces. And there's the 'x' factor too.

And I think you're looking at it the wrong way making a direct comparison between an army and a canvas. Firstly I've never met an artist that only made one painting and stopped. I'd you're out every week/several times a week, 'canvassing' on its own makes 40k look cheap. And in regards how many minis it takes to play- it can be as low as 5 (kill team marines and you can go to town on the painting quality) and plenty folks use armies they've built decades ago and havent bought since. I have xv15 stealthsuits, fire warriors and kroot from the mid noughties that see the table. I've pointed out earlier in this thread it is very possible to engage in 40k, and the gw stable of games to a very decent level even on a limited budget .

 Eilif wrote:


Further, if one is approaching miniature painting solely as an art form there are far better sculpted and proportioned figures than GW for that purpose, and many are considerably less expensive.
.

I mean, it Depends on what you paint and what you want. While I'm partial to the occasional boutique (hasslefree minis fyi - love the modern troopers and fantasy humans) purchase myself, so totally understand where you are coming from, a lot of those dark.sword minis left me cold. I'll even be cheeky and say its amazing what a good paint job can sell brcause that was my maulin take away. :p (though to be fair, solid rpg characters there!) and while I regard cb's infinity range as probably the best metals in the industry I've bought built and painted all I need and honestly they just leave me a bit cold these days. Until vet kazak squad boxes are a thing, im.done. Ironically I've simply had more fun and more joy painting gw minis these last few years (whether kill team, lotr or necromunda) than offerings from any other company, sculpts and proportions and price be damned. The 'x' factor. Whatever it is, I am just far more engaged with and drawn to gw's offerings. That is not a bad thing.

Deadnight wrote:
Apparently 80% of buyers don't game.

This is one of those "how to lie with statistics" things. I believe that GW honestly had data that gives the 80% number but they took it completely out of context to push the nonsensical claim that they're a miniatures company and nobody cares how broken the rules are. The problem with the 80% number is that it doesn't account for customer retention failures. Someone who buys a starter box but never really does anything with it and quits before ever playing a game counts towards the 80% even if they bought it primarily as a game rather than a painting project. And those numbers may even count things like a parent buying a gift for their kid in the "buyers who don't play" total. Once you look at only the people who are long-term participants in the hobby that 80% number goes down considerably.

(And then of course there's the question of how GW even got that data in the first place, given their pride in not doing market research. Garbage in, garbage out.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 McDougall Designs wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

Gue'vesa Emissary wrote:
Saying "it's narrow and short-sighted to focus on the game" is not fine, that's telling other people that they're having fun the wrong way.

No it isn't. His comment was that in his opinion focusing on the game to the detriment of the artistic is not ideal. Having an opinion does not automatically equate to everybody with a different opinion being wrong. You're entirely allowed to disagree.

This was indeed my point, Insaniak.

Then I might suggest being a little more careful in your choice of words. Calling someone's preferences "narrow and short-sighted" gives a very clear impression even if you technically preceded it with "in my opinion".

Another aspect I thought about that might make 40k "worthy" of its price (and a reason for why is so popular) is the lack of competition. When it comes to fantasy wargaming, there are some real options besides AoS - you have ASoIaF, there's Conquest, and even Mythic Americas and Warmachine. So even if I really like AoS minis, I haven't gotten into that game (yet) since there are other options that gives me the same experience. But when it comes to SF wargames? What are the real options to 40k? I searched quite a bit and I came up with a list of 10 titles, but in all honesty, the only one that is a legitimate contender to 40k imo is Dropzone Commander.

So, 40k might be worthy of it's price also because there isn't much else that let's you put on the table giant mechs, aliens, huge armies with blasters and whatnot.

there is not a really long list for fantasy games either that are in the same style as AoS that let you put giant monsters, huge armies etc. on the table
I can't think of 10 games that are the same category as those that have the big monsters are not skirmish games, and skirmish games don't really have the big monsters (Conquest and SAGA AoM would be close, but the first is R&F and the second has Monsters that AoS would call larger infantry)

there is not more competition than there is to 40k, as either it is a different style of game, scale or does not combine all the elements

Gue'vesa Emissary wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
Apparently 80% of buyers don't game.

This is one of those "how to lie with statistics" things. I believe that GW honestly had data that gives the 80% number but they took it completely out of context to push the nonsensical claim that they're a miniatures company and nobody cares how broken the rules are. The problem with the 80% number is that it doesn't account for customer retention failures. Someone who buys a starter box but never really does anything with it and quits before ever playing a game counts towards the 80% even if they bought it primarily as a game rather than a painting project. And those numbers may even count things like a parent buying a gift for their kid in the "buyers who don't play" total. Once you look at only the people who are long-term participants in the hobby that 80% number goes down considerably.

(And then of course there's the question of how GW even got that data in the first place, given their pride in not doing market research. Garbage in, garbage out.)

Yeah the 80% don't game came right out of the Kirby era when they openly admitted they didn't do market research or customer outreach or anything like that.
Personally I wager the number likely came from informal surveys by shop staff on how many new people they saw coming into buy stuff and how many people stuck around gaming at their store. Which would be easy data GW could gather without doing any formal surveys and such and could easily present a very false conclusion.

Because you're cutting out all the people who play at school/home/clubs/friends/garages etc...
You're also inflating the number of "buy and don't game" with all the people who buy or who are gifted (parents encouraging kids into new hobbies) a set and never go on to buy anything beyond that starter purchase. Plus you had the height of Lord of the Rings in that timeframe, so depending on when that survey was done by GW, you could easily have the Lord of the Rings models inflate the number of null starts with people walking in to buy models after seeing the film and then never continuing.


All of those could have easily inflated the numbers way into 80%.


I think it also overlooks another bracket which are people who buy with the intention of gaming, but never get the time/opportunity etc... to game. A bracket where if you take the game away they lose reason/focus/interest even if they aren't gaming.

We dont have the numbers, so anything goes I guess.

We have the tendency to split gaming/ painting in debates but for GW they are all clients and also many of us do both things, so that will mess with percentages.

Regarding Price per model value.

A golden deamon painter will spend 200 hours on it. A gamer that never paints will play with it for 200 hours so yeah though one.

 kodos wrote:
there is not a really long list for fantasy games either that are in the same style as AoS that let you put giant monsters, huge armies etc. on the table
I can't think of 10 games that are the same category as those that have the big monsters are not skirmish games, and skirmish games don't really have the big monsters (Conquest and SAGA AoM would be close, but the first is R&F and the second has Monsters that AoS would call larger infantry)

there is not more competition than there is to 40k, as either it is a different style of game, scale or does not combine all the elements

But is the difference big enough between Age of Sigmar and rank and flank games? I never played AoS, but I see it as a mass battle fantasy, same as the R&F ones, so in my mind it competes with Conquest, KoW, A song of Ice and fire, Oathmark, 9th Age: Fantasy Battles, Hordes of the things, Dragon Rampant. And then there are the large skirmishes - Warmachine/Hordes, LOTR, Warlords of Erehwon/Mythic Americas, the Other Side, even Warlord from Reaper.

On the Other hand, when it comes SF wargames, even including large skirmishes, the number is around half.

Personally I'd argue 40k is also a fantasy game, rather than science-fiction

Deadnight wrote:
Personally I'd argue 40k is also a fantasy game, rather than science-fiction

That's true to a point. 40k and Star Wars and similar settings are more Sci-Fantasy, Soft Sci Fi or Pulp Sci Fi as compared to Hard Sci Fi which they certainly are not.

However, I don't know that it's worth it to push against the accepted practice of anything with a spaceship and laser guns being categorized as some kind of Sci Fi.

Hard Sci-Fi is a fairly useful term. However the line between sci-fi and fantasy sci-fi is a bit blurry. Mostly because a LOT of sci-fi is basically very fantastical even down to pewpew lasers and such.

So you end up with extremes where it really is easy to see and then a whole slew of grey where you basically steadily end up adding almost everything that isn't hard sci-fi into the fantasy sci-fi. By which point its just easier to have sci-fi and hard sci-fi and such.

 Eilif wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
Personally I'd argue 40k is also a fantasy game, rather than science-fiction

That's true to a point. 40k and Star Wars and similar settings are more Sci-Fantasy, Soft Sci Fi or Pulp Sci Fi as compared to Hard Sci Fi which they certainly are not.

However, I don't know that it's worth it to push against the accepted practice of anything with a spaceship and laser guns being categorized as some kind of Sci Fi.

Or in the case of Firefly, a 'western-in-space'. :p

Damn, I still miss that show and what could have been.

 emanuelb wrote:
But is the difference big enough between Age of Sigmar and rank and flank games? I never played AoS, but I see it as a mass battle fantasy, same as the R&F ones, so in my mind it competes with Conquest, KoW, A song of Ice and fire, Oathmark, 9th Age: Fantasy Battles, Hordes of the things, Dragon Rampant. And then there are the large skirmishes - Warmachine/Hordes, LOTR, Warlords of Erehwon/Mythic Americas, the Other Side, even Warlord from Reaper.

well, if you go by that, you can add 40k to that list too, as the difference between AoS and 40k is less than between AoS and KoW/HotT/DR
there the main competition to 40k would be AoS, WM/H, LoTR and SAGA as those are the similar games although with different gameplay

AoS is a mass-skirmish and therefore competes with other mass-skirmish games and not Rank & File games as those have a different focus on the gameplay (as the first plays with models, the other with units)

just because it is fantasy with lot of models does not mean it is the same or even similar, same as if someone likes SAGA Age of Vikings, as a Dark Age Skirmisher, does not mean they will ever look into Napoelonic R&F games just because this is also a historical game with many models

 Eilif wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
Personally I'd argue 40k is also a fantasy game, rather than science-fiction

That's true to a point. 40k and Star Wars and similar settings are more Sci-Fantasy, Soft Sci Fi or Pulp Sci Fi as compared to Hard Sci Fi which they certainly are not.

However, I don't know that it's worth it to push against the accepted practice of anything with a spaceship and laser guns being categorized as some kind of Sci Fi.

Somebody once said that "Sci fi is about how people react to technology, while fantasy is about how people react to magic." Still not super helpful, as 40k has plenty of both.

I would probably argue that 40k is a fantasy story (about gods and monsters and magic) in a dystopian sci-fi setting.

 emanuelb wrote:

 kodos wrote:
there is not a really long list for fantasy games either that are in the same style as AoS that let you put giant monsters, huge armies etc. on the table
I can't think of 10 games that are the same category as those that have the big monsters are not skirmish games, and skirmish games don't really have the big monsters (Conquest and SAGA AoM would be close, but the first is R&F and the second has Monsters that AoS would call larger infantry)

there is not more competition than there is to 40k, as either it is a different style of game, scale or does not combine all the elements

But is the difference big enough between Age of Sigmar and rank and flank games? I never played AoS, but I see it as a mass battle fantasy, same as the R&F ones, so in my mind it competes with Conquest, KoW, A song of Ice and fire, Oathmark, 9th Age: Fantasy Battles, Hordes of the things, Dragon Rampant. And then there are the large skirmishes - Warmachine/Hordes, LOTR, Warlords of Erehwon/Mythic Americas, the Other Side, even Warlord from Reaper.

On the Other hand, when it comes SF wargames, even including large skirmishes, the number is around half.

I think it very much depends on the player.

If regimented troops appeal to you and you're looking for a rank and flank game. Then AoS isn't in the conversation.

If you're just looking for a big fantasy game (perhaps coming from 40k?) Then KoW, SOIAF, and AoS might all be in the same bucket .

well, as I wrote if you are looking for certain things, than 40k is on the same list as others and not something else because SciFi

40k is as much Fantasy as is AoS depending on the faction and as much SciFi as Warmachine

if someone is looking for hard SciFi, 40k won't be that game either, but usually if people are looking for "armies" in Fantasy settings they think about units in formation rather than skirmishing hordes

These days, rank and file is almost exclusively historical-based.

That said, plenty 'skirmish' style historicals too eg saga

Deadnight wrote:
These days, rank and file is almost exclusively historical-based.

That said, plenty 'skirmish' style historicals too eg saga

I don't think that's quite true. Outside GW, look at large fantasy games and KOW, Oathmark and SOIAF are doing well.

these days GW is the only one not having an R&F game, a reason why Old World is coming back (it was the no-market research necessary management that thought no one plays those game outside history nerds)

the only thing that is "new" is that with SAGA we see mass-skirmish games being more popular outside the World Wars setting, as otherwise it was only small scale skirmish, or large battles and in-between was not very popular