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ShumaGorath wrote:

And I dont see those horrid minis adding anything positive to my imaginary... to be honest I would feel sick to see such good comics or whatever image finishing is such low quality.

I've seen 40k paint jobs and conversions done much worse than out of the box clix figures.

.

Me too. The diference is that its made by fans/ entusiasts and not by a company that tries to sell it.

insaniak wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:But the D&D minis franchise seems to be doing well enough, thanks to the WotC-Hasbro connection... I think that CMG will have serious legs.

As a miniatures game, D&D is finished. They're cancelling the skirmish ruleset and are restructuring the miniature range specifically for the RPG.

Won't be the first time they've done that. Anybody remember Chainmail? I really miss that game, quick skirmish level game, great minis, you could start playing at around $20-30 for EXCELLENT metal minis. Hmmmmmm I think I know now why it was canceled....

I haven't played any of the Clix games in quite a while, but they were fun and I'm sorry to see the company go. I think the whole CMG thing has outlived its time, "Monsterpocalypse" not withstanding. When "Mageknight" first appeared it was new and exciting but it soon descended into the pit of all collectible games, he who has the most cash will usually win. That's why I got back into stuff like 40K and WHFB, where I know what I'm getting when I buy a box of models and I don't have to worry about some 13 year old kid who has every frickin' model in the game in all three levels of experience and rares and limited editions, etc, etc...Now all I have to worry about is some 13 year old kid whipping my butt because he can get my Necron into HTH.

@talthar: I know how you feel. That's why, after being invested into Magic, I decided to let everything "not Magic" just pass me by.

What's nice is that a lot of this stuff (i.e. Pirates) is still fun at small scales, where you *don't* need a huge bankroll.

I all honesty there were some gems in the rough of Heroclix. I am a Batman villians fanatic, and the Two-Face and Ventriloquist minis from the latest set are very nice. Ohh well...I guess I will just use my clix models with the Superfigs rules.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
What's nice is that a lot of this stuff (i.e. Pirates) is still fun at small scales, where you *don't* need a huge bankroll.

Right, which is the issue, getting into a situation where it's not all money driven. Really to do this, you need to either get a big group of friends together, or something store sponsored, and really it's almost not in the store best interest to run a "cheap" collectable card game league. (Yes, I know it happens quite a bit, but still).

I'm proud to say that I probably spent a max of $200 on Magic, and I played fairly competitively (with my friends) for a few years before it got old. Most of it was spending $40 to buy a ton of cards from somebody who was getting out of it. I've had similar experience with a number of other ccgs (40K CCG, LoTR, L5R, etc). Really they can be a lot of fun, if you can all agree to play casually.

BigToof wrote:

insaniak wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:But the D&D minis franchise seems to be doing well enough, thanks to the WotC-Hasbro connection... I think that CMG will have serious legs.

As a miniatures game, D&D is finished. They're cancelling the skirmish ruleset and are restructuring the miniature range specifically for the RPG.

Won't be the first time they've done that. Anybody remember Chainmail? I really miss that game, quick skirmish level game, great minis, you could start playing at around $20-30 for EXCELLENT metal minis. Hmmmmmm I think I know now why it was canceled....

The minis were great. A theory put forth by Matt Wilson as to why it flopped was
the decision to make the models "realistic" and subtle as opposed to the familiar GW
method of exaggerating weaponry and poses. Minis are small. Making them subtle
makes them seem even smaller.

malfred wrote:

BigToof wrote:

insaniak wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:But the D&D minis franchise seems to be doing well enough, thanks to the WotC-Hasbro connection... I think that CMG will have serious legs.

As a miniatures game, D&D is finished. They're cancelling the skirmish ruleset and are restructuring the miniature range specifically for the RPG.

Won't be the first time they've done that. Anybody remember Chainmail? I really miss that game, quick skirmish level game, great minis, you could start playing at around $20-30 for EXCELLENT metal minis. Hmmmmmm I think I know now why it was canceled....

The minis were great. A theory put forth by Matt Wilson as to why it flopped was
the decision to make the models "realistic" and subtle as opposed to the familiar GW
method of exaggerating weaponry and poses. Minis are small. Making them subtle
makes them seem even smaller.

I am going to disagree malfred.

I was big into Chainmail, because I wanted that kind of game, but wanted the hobby aspect too.

Mechwarrior was very big at that time, and was really hitting its peak (this was prior to the Topps buyout). Wizkids was making a very profitable name for themselves.

I really thing Chainmail (circa: 2000) was made in repsonce to mageknights overwhelming success at that time.
I also think that Wizards killed chainmail for the exact same reason.

Because prepaints were hot, so they dropped the metal models, and went blind buy prepaints, which make for far more income potential.

I honestly think that the models that were made for chainmail had very little if anything to do with chainmail dying. (though the small swords do break FAR too often)

Of course.

The profits didn't roll in fast enough

Just some history here for D&D and miniatures. The original Chainmail was from the '70s. BattleSystem was the D&D miniature game from the mid to late '80s with the official miniatures manufactured for them by Ral Partha.

There was also a later reuse of the Chainmail name in 2002 for D&D's miniatures game. It only lasted a single year before it was replaced with the D&D Miniatures Game with it's prepainted plastic miniatures.

For an RPG company, they have a long history with miniatures.

HHHMM a madcat stomping on a wizard's tower what a fascinanting piece to build might make it some time heheheh.......

Ghaz wrote:Just some history here for D&D and miniatures. The original Chainmail was from the '70s. BattleSystem was the D&D miniature game from the mid to late '80s with the official miniatures manufactured for them by Ral Partha.

There was also a later reuse of the Chainmail name in 2002 for D&D's miniatures game. It only lasted a single year before it was replaced with the D&D Miniatures Game with it's prepainted plastic miniatures.

For an RPG company, they have a long history with miniatures.

And of course, the hordes of little monster miniatures that GW (the UK D&D licensee back in the old days) made in the UK for D&D eventually created the impetus for Warhammer Fantasy Battles.

talthar wrote:I haven't played any of the Clix games in quite a while, but they were fun and I'm sorry to see the company go. I think the whole CMG thing has outlived its time, "Monsterpocalypse" not withstanding. When "Mageknight" first appeared it was new and exciting but it soon descended into the pit of all collectible games, he who has the most cash will usually win. That's why I got back into stuff like 40K and WHFB, where I know what I'm getting when I buy a box of models and I don't have to worry about some 13 year old kid who has every frickin' model in the game in all three levels of experience and rares and limited editions, etc, etc...Now all I have to worry about is some 13 year old kid whipping my butt because he can get my Necron into HTH.

Well mage knight, if played using the dungeon ruleset, could be played any way you really wanted it to. I'd field a list comprised of hitash levat and a handful of heroes, than use 10-20 point monsters to fill out the ranks in a thousand-point game. I'd usually win too hahaha, zombies are cheap and held things in place til Hitash could kill them but good. Total army cost was about a hundred dollars.

The thing that killed mageknight was "mageknight 2.0" everybody restarts the collection, with new rules? Hell no. My entire gaming group dropped it like a rock when wizkids said "Buy moar!"

Hellfury wrote:
Mechwarrior was very big at that time, and was really hitting its peak (this was prior to the Topps buyout). Wizkids was making a very profitable name for themselves.

I'm pretty sure that MW : DA came out just after they canceled Chainmail, I remember being part of the playtesting, and absolutely hating the game. The whole, you can move, or you can shoot drove me nuts.

Back in the day around 2000 I played Mage Knight and then tried my hand at MechWarrior. Years ago I played what is now called Classic Battletech.

When WizKids changed all the rules and banned figures in 2003 I knew the end was near. I lasted one more year with Mage Knight and then in 2005 they stopped production of the figures. I saw people playing MechWarrior last year at one of the local Stores.

Most of my Mage knight figures are now conversion fodder for other games 40K and PP games. Have used some of the figures for WHF as well.

What drew me to WK was the possibility that they would bring battletech back.

I think TOPPS may keep some of the lines and will let the others go to RIP.

Warrior 50

Warrior 50 wrote:What drew me to WK was the possibility that they would bring battletech back.

Umm... BattleTech never went away.

BYE

Right, but Catalyst Games had to get the license from Wizkids... so technically that is a comeback as they're not the original developers.

Like Urban Mammoth with the VOID IP (but not the models) etc.

If C:BT re-did their model line I'd consider it. But I've got more nostalgia for Stretch Armstrong than I do for those old BT models...

Achilles wrote:Right, but Catalyst Games had to get the license from Wizkids... so technically that is a comeback as they're not the original developers.

A lot of the people working on CBT today are the same people who worked on it during the FASA days. And before Catalyst it was Fanpro, with the same group of people, just a different company. FASA's demise didn't kill BTech, and neither will the death of Wizkids.

BYE

Older models > New Models in detail, scale and "feel"

Old:




New:



Look at the lines, details, and little things carved into the older models. The new ones look like slabs and/or tumors.

From what I know, none of those models are new.

The Albatross, the third one you posted there, was released within a few years of TRO:3055 being published. TRO: 3055 was published in 1995. Most things in the BTech range are very old. I've got some tank models that are almost as old as I am (sculpts from '88). The fourth one you posted, the Battle Hawk, is from the same book - a 13 year old publication.

The biggest amount of their newer models - ignoring the Celestials - came about from Project Phoenix. That was 2003, and gave us some very nice models, like the excellent new Thunderbolt and Warhammer IIC.

BYE

Yeah, only the last one is a newer sculpt... probably a WoB design that looks like every other original design post Operation Phoenix. CBT's been in decline for a while IMO, but it's had nothing to do with Wizkids...

Prometheum5 wrote:CBT's been in decline for a while IMO, but it's had nothing to do with Wizkids...

Yes. A huge decline that has seen steadily growing sales, an ever-increasingly packed release schedule, multiple awards for new boxed sets, and production rate for new miniatures that hasn't been seen in years.

Yep. They really are declining...

BYE

This totally blows!

Older models > New Models in detail, scale and "feel"

Keep in mind not everyone likes the older "Feel" of having hundreds of extraneous lines because the concept artist couldn't be bothered to erase his initial proportion lines. This wasn't something unique to battletech, it was just sort of the "Style" in the 80's - early 90's.

However... The art in a lot of the technical manuals, besides being god awful with terrible perspective is often pretty lazy. The battletech card game delivered what has to be the best art ever used relating to a battletech product. Unfortunately the models themselves are based on the technical manual drawings.

Yes. There are numerous BTech models that are... well... terrible. A lot of the resculpts are much, much better, but some of the old ones were not only bad in looks but also terrible in scale. There are some Assault 'Mechs that are smaller than Light 'Mechs, and all sorts of crazy stuff. The newer ones are also getting bigger. Take the new Kraken and the bigger WoB 'Mechs. They're HUGE.

Part of it is the transfer from Ral Partha to Iron Wind, some of it is the fact that it's all a case of freelance sculptors rather than a team of dedicated sculptors all working on a single line and, yes, some of it is due to the tech manual drawings which, although being redrawn quite nicley in the Revised Editions of the TRO's, have sadly made quite a large impact already.

BYE

Has CBT legitimately been growing to the extent you claim? Everywhere around me I see it as a dead game that sells no models and has almost no players, and the main CBT community I always visited has slowed down considerably from what it was about 5 years ago... I'm willing to be wrong, but I just haven't seen the success you're mentioning.

Well, my friends dad who played back in the old days before my friend was born. (Wife made him sell 10' by 4' worth of models when the she got pregnant lol) He has pretty much re-gathered all of his lost stuff. In Numbers anyways, the guys is nuts.

CBT was my first 'real' game after Mage Knight ushered me in... I've still got great big gobs of models, both paint and unassembled, including a bunch of the better OOP models and a ton of vehicles I've little use for... along with some Armorcast stuff I'm saving for a rainy day. CBT had its charm, but often bogged down with too much math for me... but I still love its detail and customization.

CBT never struck me as a math-intensive game.

The old ICE games on the other hand...

Well, it's not terribly math-based, but then again, I'M not terribly math-based... I had a bear of a time keeping movement and terrain and skill and whatnot modifiers all in check.