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I play GW because if I use my GW army, I can find a game seven days a week from 11am-7pm (or later) by stopping at any of 6 GW stores in the area.

If I want to play Warmachine, I need to go to one LGS on Saturday in a five hour window and compete for tables with several other games.

While WM/H is excellent, game availability makes the decision for me. PP could team up with the Flames of War crew, for example, and build some stores which can compete with the beast that is GW. If there were even one dedicated store in the area, I'd be spending money and time there.

I don't have a GW store in my area, it is all sold through the same FLGS.

GW is the largest only because they have a longer term of being around. 40K/WFB are played, along with Mordheim, but the people aren't nearly as enthusiastic as the PP crowd is.

Hell, I get more excitement out of my Battletech players than the GW crowd gets. There really doesn't seem to be a lot of passion for GW. Players, yes. Love of the games, not as much.

Actually, GW more or less grew the market from scratch. The original plan was to supply rules for peoples fantasy models. The beast grew from there!

If you were to ask PP, Rackham etc, I think they would agree without GW going before and making a success of it, they wouldn't exist at all.

PP might admit it, but I don't think Rackham possesses enough humility to admit any such thing.

Yeah you're right Mad Dock, GW started from selling out the back of a van in london.
The trend has changed slightly with the plastics GW are producing. They've been received well by the general public; they're cheaper, you can position the model as you want, the figures don't all look the same etc.
But the initial investment to make a mould for plastics is huge. In the old days for metal you could make your black rubber moulds in your shed. So it's almost impossible for a new company to start, unless they have a massive financial backing

I see alot of people afraid to start a new game because they dont want to be the first one that does it, and they have spent so much money on GW stuff.

Its really sad to see smaller companies treating their customers better than GW (who has alot more money)

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Actually, GW more or less grew the market from scratch. The original plan was to supply rules for peoples fantasy models. The beast grew from there!

If you were to ask PP, Rackham etc, I think they would agree without GW going before and making a success of it, they wouldn't exist at all.

When did GW start really turning stuff out? Because FASA might have been able to make a claim to it.

Mattlov wrote:When did GW start really turning stuff out? Because FASA might have been able to make a claim to it.

Think it was when they teamed up with Brian in '79. Before this their main success was importing D&D


White Dwarf started in '77 (before that it was newsletter called owl and weasel, which started in '75)

Pretty much in my area GW rules all with PP gaining momentum, nothing else even comes up as a blip on the radar. The problem is that the other games aren't supported by the stores and without that support you cannot get people to play. I have brought in models from Anima: Tactics and some Infinity stuff. I'm getting many people interested in Infinity because of the quality of the minis but until I jumped in and bought a starter set and the rule book no one else even wanted to try it. Now I have a group of about 10 hardcore gamers wanting to play and I haven't even had a game yet. I think it all comes down to one person willing to buy stuff and show the way.

Well, sure!

Of course, it helps to have a game store in your area... sniff... sob...

A friend and I introduced FoW to our Boston-based gaming club not too long ago. The club was born in a local GW branch so that explains the plethora of GW games played at the club, but now we have six members with 1,500-point FoW armies, a seventh setting his up, an eight getting the rulebook with the intention to play, a ninth who will get into it once he finds another job...

People play Warmachine on a regular enough basis...

Whoever said it's about taking responsibility to introduce new games to the club is right on the money, I feel. My friend and I were dubious as to Flames of War's chances but all you have to do is get the models on the table. If the ruleset is tight, once people start talking about the game it will catch on.

Monopolies only exist because no one challenges the powers that be due to the illusion that they cannot be toppled. I'm not saying go after GW games at your club or anything, but if takes someone to be the point man on new games. It means taking a risk.

Worst case, you sell the stuff on eBay for a minor loss and you got to learn about a new game, which may give you more appreciation for the games you play regularly.

Best case, other people get on board and now you have a new game to play, which ultimately leads to ALL your games being more fresh.

I appreciate playing 40K much, much more now that I play a FoW Gerpanzerte Panzergrenadier Kompanie.

Alpharius wrote:Well, sure!

Of course, it helps to have a game store in your area... sniff... sob...

Hi Alpharius

Sorry to hear about you FLGS closing. Where abouts are you located?

Cheers
Dave

In Southeastern Massachusetts, the greater New Bedford area.

We had a game store in our area for probably close to twenty years running, but the last survivor closed done around 6 months ago.

Admittedly, I can head on up to the Boston area, but an hour drive each way is hard to manage most times, especially with 2 young daughters at home!

Still, I have hope that another will open some day as we do have a fairly large school here (University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth campus)...

I feel your pain i have to drive an hour back and forth from South Carolina to Augusta GA to get my games in but its worth and ive gotten use to it after doing it for almost four years!!

Hi Alpharius

Was that Game Haven that closed down? I played against a great guy from your area at the Baltimore GT (Joel Morgan, I think) who mentioned gaming at a local store but I can't remember where it was or what it was called : ( It seems there are a few stores around (a couple out on the cape) that might be closer than Boston?

Best of luck.

Cheers
Dave

Dave,

Yes, it was GAME HAVEN that recently shut down.

And there are a couple of stores on the Cape, but they're still about 45 minutes to an hour away, and I'm not sure how good they are.

There is an awesome store in Waltham, MA, about an hour and 15 minutes away so, when I get the chance to get away, that's usually where I go.

I probably should give the Cape stores a try, though I think one of them is on the part time side, with rather limited hours...

Selorian wrote:Certainly historical war gaming is just as big as GW. Urban War or Metropolis is well worth a look. Its not historical however the miniatures are fantastic and I have heard a lot of positive things about the games.

Around 50% of my local gaming club play Urban War.

I'll second the shout for Urban War/metropolis. Great minis, good rules (available to download free from the Urban Mammoth site) and really nice background and artwork.

You can start small with Urban War (think necromunda style with better rules) and progress to Metropolis (larger squad based rather than individuals).

I have a Metropolis force of Triads and Urban War forces for Koralon, Va3a, Gladiators, Syntha and Viridian.

At my club we tend to have phases with other game companies however you can always consistently get a GW game. Currently we appear to be entering an Uncharted Seas phase. Last year it was Infinity which I missed and before that it was Confrontation. However other games seems to last about 6 months which makes me slightly nervous about starting. With Warmachine I knew several other places that played it before I began. Also games tend to cascade. Two people general start then two more and so on and so forth. Once a cascade starts they can become very popular.

Sorry for the Threadcromancy, but I recently have had a little more experience both in trying to introduce games and seeing others introduce different games.

I think that unless a new game takes off fairly quickly, say within a month or two at most, a new game at a club may be doomed to go back in the box.

I posted earlier about introducing Flames of War into my club with a friend. The game didn't start taking off until we had four or five of us with armies such that Flames of War was being played every - single - week. Then the game must have felt like a more "legitimate" option to people, and now we're up to ten players with full armies, many of them painted.

Someone tried to bring in Fields of Glory, but I've seen maybe two games played. I tried to bring in AT-43, but the two guys who bought in lost interest within a month. Now I see neither game at my club, the guys who were playing Fields of Glory seem to have gone back to WFB and 40K, one of the AT-43 players is back into 40K and me and the same friend who pioneered FoW at the club, who bought into AT-43 with a large Karman army, are playing Flames of War and FoW/40K respectively.

I hardly play 40K anymore, to the point where I have hundreds of dollars' worth of 40K models I received as gifts which I think about just selling all the time as I have absolutely no will to build them. Yet I would hold onto anything I painted both because of the tremendous amount of work I put into them, but also because I have friends who only play 40K and I may want to game with them at some point.

For games that have no large, established player bases such that it becomes a relative pain in the ass to find opponents, the motivation to hold onto the stuff after the game fails to take hold is much weaker. I'm shedding one of my three AT-43 armies as we speak, and may follow up with another one in the immediate future if the frequency of my games stays as low as it is.

GW is a tough nut to crack, kind of like WoW in the MMO genre, because GW provides you with the most consistent ability to find opponents pretty much anywhere you go; and this hobby being so prohibitively-expensive, a lot of people can only afford to play one or two and/or it becomes a dubious proposition to go spend the $300+ it will take on average to start most of these games up if you're not assured of others to play it with.