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Not sure I'd pay to rent an army by itself, but I might pay for a gaming experience i.e. you could turn up, play with a ready painted army on some decent terrain with a reasonable opponent. Kind of like the wargaming equivalent of a cyber cafe.

I think this is a great idea for a growing market, and an okay idea for an established one. The thing about this is that you can't expect that players who already have their own armies are going to rent one. So your target consumer is the new players, and charging an amount that would allow you to recoup costs associated with the endevour will likely cut into your actual sales of models to them.

One way I can see this getting use is if you have a huge army selection all complete with huge unit selections. Obviously the problem with that is the substantial investment required.

If you decide to go forward with this idea, I would be interested how it turns out.

edit: I would definitely consider renting an army I was thinking of starting up, to get the feel for how it plays.

I'm too confused by how the army rental would work to tell whether I'd be willing to do it. The central problem is that it's too expensive to have a decent selection of armies (at least for the two games with the biggest forums on this site) and any rental price that got the owner a decent return would discourage people from choosing anything but the exact army they wanted. Imagine going into Blockbuster, walking down to the video game isle, and realizing that each of the boxes cost $600 each. You go in there hoping to rent Resident Evil 5, but all they have available is Grand Prix 3, and the rental cost is $20 per day. It'd be like agreeing to pay to see a movie you didn't want to see.

Is the person who rents the army liable for incidental wear and tear on the army or for unusual damages? If you rent a gaming system, there's a chance that the device is going to break spontaneously through no fault of the renter and no reasonable rental agreement would hold the renter responsible for that. If you have four dozen spearmen, you're going to get the occasional broken spear and you're definitely going to have chipped paint as a standard effect of use. And then you're going to have to factor in models that get lost during rental.

How good of an army is it? Does the army have a bunch of options? Or is it just something generic like four Assault on Black Reach boxes and two dragons?

I remember renting VCR's and laser disc players as a kid, so in theory I'd consider renting an army. I simply don't expect to ever see an army rental system worth using for both the renter and the army owner in real life.

solkan wrote:

Is the person who rents the army liable for incidental wear and tear on the army or for unusual damages? If you rent a gaming system, there's a chance that the device is going to break spontaneously through no fault of the renter and no reasonable rental agreement would hold the renter responsible for that. If you have four dozen spearmen, you're going to get the occasional broken spear and you're definitely going to have chipped paint as a standard effect of use. And then you're going to have to factor in models that get lost during rental.

I would say that the renter would not be held liable for normal wear and tear.. but if they break a model beyond repair, then they should possibly pay for the damages (although, no one gets charged extra for scratching a DVD when they rent from blockbuster,etc.)

Ensis Ferrae wrote:
I would say that the renter would not be held liable for normal wear and tear.. but if they break a model beyond repair, then they should possibly pay for the damages (although, no one gets charged extra for scratching a DVD when they rent from blockbuster,etc.)

You take the disc home from Blockbuster, you put it into your machine, you play the disc, take it back to the store, and when the guy at the store inspect it, it's scratched. You rent a 200 model army, you play for a bit, you pack up the models, and take them back. When the store unpacks the models, two of the spears are broken. Did the player drop the models? Did they just get knocked around in the foam carrying case? It's the exact same situation, and there's no way to prove whether it was an "accident" or not.

Do you want to guess how much hassle a small claims lawsuit over broken models would be? Or how much hassle it is for video rental places to deal with damaged discs?

No one in their right mind would want to rent a movie if they had to worry about their DVD player eating the disc and costing them $60, and no one in their right mind would rent an army if they had to worry about a $60 model breaking and coming out of their pocket. That's why some places have "insurance" fees added to their rental fees.

Flashman wrote:Not sure I'd pay to rent an army by itself, but I might pay for a gaming experience i.e. you could turn up, play with a ready painted army on some decent terrain with a reasonable opponent. Kind of like the wargaming equivalent of a cyber cafe.

Ah, now this is something I could get behind. The key I think, is that the person renting out the army is actually making an effort to make sure I have a good time with the money I spend on it.

@solkan

I was thinking that you would rent the army for use in the store. I know of about ten game stores across the US that have the minis readily available for use with all the selection someone could desire for a game.

I will elaborate what I was thinking. The game store has 6 armies available for rent for 40k, 4 for fantasy, and 3 for flames, etc. The armies are from store employees who have graciously allowed for their armies to be used as well as some from the actual store. However you want to work it.

A customer comes in, his name is Davie. He is planning to meet his friend Fred for a game a vet who is bringing his own army in. Davie came in early to rent the army beforehand. He approaches the clerk and says I would like to rent your Necron army. The clerk responds "Sure thing Mate, did you bring in a list or do you need help building one?"
Davie can respond yes I brought one it is 1500 pts, the clerk checks it and says great we have all these models available to play so here you go. 1500pts is a 10 dollar charge for the day.
Or Davie can say no I didn't I am a newbie and need help. The store clerk says well great I can help. He pulls up army builder on the store computer and makes a list with Davie.

Fred shows up and helps put on the last finishing touches to his friends army and right before they start he says to the clerk, "Hey I have heard the new Chaos Space Marines codex has come out and they released those cool new Tzeentchian Coven miniatures, Do you have a set for rent?"

Clerk says, "Well by George we do, that will be 2 dollars for a game since they are new and everyone is going to want to try them out I can only let you use them for one game."

Fred and Davie proceed to have a fun and imaginative game where the Necrons are stomped into the ground by the Overpowered new Chaos Codex.

If I really wanted to play and I had no army at all yes. Otherwise nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

This would be a great for new comers that wants to try out armies that they either couldn't afford or wants to see how the games is played. My friends store wants to rent out armies for customers that want to tried it out. In todays economy market is bad for new comers that can't drop a couple of hundreds of dollars for a game.

True.

I wouldn't want to because it wouldn't be MY army, it'd be some other guys army. I wouldn't have painted it, I wouldn't have made much deciscions on what to take besides what is available, ect.

No i wouldn't. It wouldn't be my army.

Sounds like you would need insurance.

Would consider renting an army depending on the price and model selection for play testing purposes. Vassal is simply now quite the same as playing in real life and proxies are not always the same as the actual model.

As a really new player, The problem i would see with renting an army is not knowing how it's played. You would need to read the Codex and understand it in order to have an enjoyable game and know the rules for the army your going to rent. It would suck to rent an army just to always get destroyed because i dont' know the intricacies of the army. I would still probably want to try it if i played against people who where really casual about the game.

Well I don't think if you don't know how to play the armies, then rental is not exactly for you. I'd assume if you rented an army you'd know how to play 40k after that learning 40k units isn't that hard at all - theres not a lot of special rules to armies.

But it would be good i suppose for a learning player who trying to learn, but not pay the bank in price.

Zevach wrote:As a really new player, The problem i would see with renting an army is not knowing how it's played. You would need to read the Codex and understand it in order to have an enjoyable game and know the rules for the army your going to rent. It would suck to rent an army just to always get destroyed because i dont' know the intricacies of the army. I would still probably want to try it if i played against people who where really casual about the game.

i think that in the case of new players, its more of a "showcase army" where the game store can showcase the game to you, show you some rules and how its played, etc.

but if i have my own army, but want to playtest a new unit without proxies, a rental system would be nice.

Hell no! I only field what I paint.