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So, I am an affirmed GW fan. Barring a brief and unsuccessful dabble in Warmachine, I've not played anyone elses games. Though having heard about Spinespur, this may be about to change.

Now the question itself is open, as unloaded I can make it, and a matter of genuine interest. Ready? Here it comes!

For those who play non-GW Games, do you tend to stick to one system or company, or do you tend to play a range of games?

That is all. Interested to hear what people say!

I mostly play GW, but once I found out about other games I tried as many as I could find. My only limiting factor is opponents. Currently I play 40K, Warmachine and LOTR. I want to get started with Celtos to see what it's like, and I used to play D'n'D minis, but finding players is hard.

I want to have some room in my brain for things other than wargame rules, so I try to keep the number of systems I play to a minimum. That being (from worst to best) 40k, Warmachine/Hordes, and Monsterpocalypse.

I've been involved in the hobby (miniature wargaming, not the mythical "GW Hobby")for 26 years and have played ALOT of different game systems over the years. A complete list of games I've tried would take me quite some time to compile. Although I tend to concentrate on three or four systems at any one time due more to time contraints than anything else and my interest tends to fluxuate. For example right now the primary games I am playing on a regular basis at the moment are Field of Glory, Flames of War, and of course 40k. To more fully answer Doc's question, I really don't concentrate on a praticular company although I will give a closer look to a new system that is produced by a company that I have had good experiences with in the past.

TR

Monsterpoc is a great game. I'd probably play it more if I didn't really want to play with armies
that I'd painted.

There are games that I've played or bought into with little to no expectation of actually
playing. That usually means I'm buying two small starter forces if I want to play or get
friends to play.

I tend to try and convert proxy forces for games I want to try, rather than buying in.

I'm a gamer.
I guess I'm like Trench Raider in this. I have played many games over the last 25 odd years. Napoleonics, WW2, Modern, futuristic, from about a dozen (or more) different rule sets.

If it was a game I liked and the company went under, I kept the minis and retasked them ( a few Warzone minis are in my SM army - a few are in my DH). Some just sit on the shelf and look pretty (1/72 scale battlemechs).

Friends and I even dabbled in our own ruleset (percentile mechanic) that combined aspects of several games (back in the early 90s). We never got around to tidying them up or publishing though.

GW 40K is the only wargame i play, but play many table-top RPGs.
Don't have the cash to spend on more than one army, never mind more systems!

Outside of GW my only real interest is Historicals as GW more than satisfies my sci-fi/fantasy tabletop gaming needs.

I try to play whatever period of history I feel most inspired by. 2 periods have always stood out for me, though I'm know to dabble in others. The Napoleonic Wars and WW2. Yeah I know they are the 2 most popular but dammit I just love them so.

WW2 because you can help but be exposed to it and it's great to have a war where there are still new perspectives being aired as we still have participants left alive. As a result FoW is a very big game for me as its the only set of rules I've come across that have been able to unite all of my local group and is playable in a couple of hours.

Ive dabbled in Firefly, Spearhead, Rapid Fire, Blitzkrieg commander and Rules of Engagement as well over the years. And I've played with 6mm, 15mm 1/72 and 28mm miniatures.

As for the Napoleonic wars, well when I first started gaming there was a book in my school library on Napoleonic Wargaming and me and my friends read it and bought tons of 1/72 Airfix/Esci/Revell toys to play games with. We knew little of the organization and tactics of the period so it was rather interesting to say the least. But tons of fun. About the same time Sharpe first came on our TV screens and I've been a nut for the period ever since.

However its the one thing I've never been able come to any concrete decision about regarding rules or scale. Shako remains my favorite ruleset but as far as I'm aware its out of print. I eagerly await Rick Priestley and Jervis Johnsons new horse and Musket rules being published by Warlord games.

I'm tempted to get and army together using the perry twins and vitrixes new 28mm plastics. However I'm still tempted to use good old 1/72 as the availability has, if anything, grown.

I'm an off-season CCG player, Scrabbler and RPer more than a wargamer, but I just love games in general (and currently play more 40K than anything else). I play games based on what other people are playing. I actually think WH40K is one of the worst written and worst supported games I've ever touched; characters are not unique enough, mechanics disrupt themselves by virtue of existing in too great a number and let's just say I've played games where they actually answer rules questions and inconsistencies. I have no idea why people put up with it for GW. I would rather play a crappy game and have opponents than have one I love that I never get to play (though I have several of those around). Some of my favorites are Race Day (the WizKids Nascar game), Initial D CCG (simple and perfect, if slightly unbalanced) and the Transformers Cybertron Boardgame (that's some good stuff! There was a Star Wars game with the same engine and the same stats, just different art and names). Settlers of Catan is up there to for simple accesibility. I'm obsessed with game design and have several completed games that someday I hope to make copies of and sell for fun at conventions (if I make a little profit, yay, otherwise it'll just be a hobby). For that reason I usually buy a starter of whatever interests me and to snipe good ideas. Completely off-topic. Anyway, I'll start playing Yugioh again once they get what I consider a non-slowed ban list and I'll start Magic again too because there's a new scene building in my area.

I've mostly played GW games for the last twenty years, but I am tempted by some newer games, mostly Infinity and Metropolis, though I'm also occasionally drawn to Warmachine. I guess that I also have to take into account whether or not I would have anyone to play against, and in that respect GW games mostly win out. (Damnit!!!)

As an official Demo Agent for Catalyst Game Labs, I play their games a lot (Battletech, ShadowRun, CthuluTech, soon playing Eclipse Phase and Leviathan).

But I also play D&D and other RPG games from several publishers.

Ah well, if we're including CCGs and RPGs, I play Magic The Gathering (love my Snakes deck!) and a lot of White Wolf stuff (hoping to run a Promethean game before long).

I guess I'm something of a Mainstream Monkey, but as Warpcrafter mentioned, the trick is finding something you can rope others into playing as well.

Just looked up at my shelf, and I have 11 Fatpack Card boxes, each containing a Booster Box worth of cards, if not more. This means the 4 decks I play with cost me £250 each! And I wonder where the money goes!

So, looking for sociable Boardgames to play. My mate has all of Munchkin which is good enough for a laugh, but by deliberate design, largely devoid of tactics. Some of my gaming circle (the ones who are more acquaintances than friends, barring Fitzeh) are playing Shadows over Camelot at the moment, and I've of course heard good things about Settlers of Catan. Looking for any game essentially, not involving Miniatures or Collectables, to play over a few pints round a friends house.

I play chess. But seriously 40k is my first wargame. I used to love playing table top RPG's but I think I was a little too much like B.A. in the Knights of the Dinner Table.

Shadows Over Camelot is amazing. Get a good group for it and you won't be dissapointed.

I play as many games as I can afford, which is Warmachine/Hordes Flames of War and uncharted Seas at the moment.

I don't play any Games Workshop games at the moment but if GW made a game in which I could use my 40k figures that wasn't terrible I'd be all over it like a rash as I would for an Elric licence. If Space Hulk comes out I will play that.

Flames of War has a rather huge following in my area

In the same boat with Trench Raider. Been playing for 25+ years and ranges from GW games to various boardgames and independent games.

When I heard that new rules were coming out (whether historical or scifi/fantasy) I would usually buy them just to give it a read at least.

Mattlov wrote: Leviathan

We're not talking Renegade Legion Leviathan are we? Or is it Leviathan the fantasy game?

The only game I play besides GW ones (including Dark Heresy) is BattleTech.

BattleTech gives me my fix of detailed technical and needlessly complex rules, with record sheets for each 'Mech, critical hit tables, and more pages of tables and summaries than GW has pages of rules. It's a wonderfully clean system that quite franky gaks all over the plainly amateur efforts that GW vomits up to us. Plus I love the background, the artwork, and the flow of the game. It's a very different feel. When I play BTech there are no lists, no meta-game that we consider - only the scenario and the campaign. It's great fun.

But beyond BTech... no. I've seen lots of other games. Void looked pretty cool (what's it called now? Havoc or something?) and the minis looked pretty good. AT-43 also looks pretty cool. I like the look of some of the Hordes stuff. But beyond that I don't have much interest in any others.

It has to grab me with a good story. BTech grabs me because the story is so rich and detailed. There's no narrative scope, so you're either playing 'What If' scenarios, recreating historical battles, or simply making things up/doing AU campaigns, but the what's there is great. Compared to 40K where fluff changes from edition to edition, and everything is left intentionally vague, giving everyone huge amounts of narrative scope.

So really I get grabbed by BTech and 40K for the same reason, just different methods. Nothing else has managed to do that so far.

robertsjf wrote:

Mattlov wrote: Leviathan

We're not talking Renegade Legion Leviathan are we? Or is it Leviathan the fantasy game?

Neither. It is a new game CGL is putting out of Alternate History WWI. Tesla found a way to make just about anything fly, so Leviathan is WWI era wet navy battleships fighting it out IN THE AIR!!!!!

I play reapers fantasy game other than gw.

I only played 40k really when I played GW games and I've not played that for over 2 years now. Sold most of my armies. Since then I've become involved in Urban War, Hordes, Rules of Engagment, C3 and looking to play AE-WWII. Apart from enjoying playing the games the other main reason for playing them is flexibility. By this I mean I can buy a force, then if get fed up with them or want a change, buy another force and it won't cost the earth.

Currently I have a Syntha force with I'm adding to so I can use it in Metropolis, but I've also now bought a Gladiator starter set. I have a Wolfen force and plenty of Kelts to play C3, plus I can build a Dogs of War army out of them. Rules of Engagement I have a Panzer Lehr force, a Royal Marine Commando force and building an Easy Company Para force, I also have my eye on doing a European SAS detachment and German Para's.

All of the above have the same thing in common, you can construct a game playable force with a hell of a lot less figures than GW. For the cost of a decent 40k army you can build between 2 - 4 different factions / armies and use them in systems that play just as well as 40k and in some cases better.

I'm a systems junkie with ADD!

I've played everything from plastic clix games to 2mm scale Victorian SF in lead.

Provided it is in a genre that intrigues me, doesn't involve to massive an outlay and I've got time to paint it (which is where PPP scores for me!) I'll give it a go.

Frankly after I've played a system for a while and built up a few options in it, I'm ready to move on and would rather spend a few quid on something totally new than in pimping up something I've played a lot already.

Just the way I'm built I suppose.

I’m like TrenchRaider, Chromedog and the other old lags.

I’ve been playing games since before GW existed. I’ve played many periods in many scales, using many sets of rules.

Current interests include but are not restricted to 1:1200 Napoleonic Naval, 1:3000 WW1 and WW2 naval, 6mm Napoleonic, 2mm, 15mm and 25mm Ancients, and 15mm ACW.

I’ve always gone with the idea that you can mix and match rules and figures from several companies.

This modern idea that you stick with one company (GW) and that company provides all your game is quite strange to me. It’s because of fluff. Historicals have their own fluff called history, so it’s impossible for a company to get a lock on a game.

On the plus side, a game like 40K offers possibilities in modelling and conversion which you can’t have from Historicals. Any SF ruleset with a flexible unit creation system offers a similar opportunity, though the 40K background is very well recognised and also affords chances for parody (e.g. Angry Marines, Hello Kitty marines.)

I play a variety of games from a variety of publishers.

I played a few games of 5th edition, but I wouldn't consider myself a GW player anymore. It took 19 years.

Dal'yth Dude wrote:I play a variety of games from a variety of publishers.

I played a few games of 5th edition, but I wouldn't consider myself a GW player anymore. It took 19 years.

To get cured of it?

Took me 19 years to get tired of 40K, but mainly GW.

I mainly play GW as you can go anywhere and probably find a game. My club tends to have phases. We had a Confrontation phase, I was away for the infinity phase and then there was the Warmachine phase. Playing other games gives you a break from the GW mechanics.

Llamahead wrote:I mainly play GW as you can go anywhere and probably find a game. My club tends to have phases. We had a Confrontation phase, I was away for the infinity phase and then there was the Warmachine phase. Playing other games gives you a break from the GW mechanics.

Yeah, that's what clubs do.

A long time ago my local club started a great 15mm Napoleonic trend. I painted up the Army of Saxony using Minifigs. Then a couple of guys caught the 25mm bug and wanted to change everything to small scale battles. Another guy and I wanted to go the other way, and do super scale battles using 6mm. Result, shrunken Napoleonics all round.

Then we all got into 15mm ACW and 20mm Vietnam skirmish.

Fortunately, lead doesn't go off like fruit and veg.