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It wasn't that difficult back before the Internet, either. I saw Battletech, Star Wars, Aliens and Kryomek minis in my local Virgin megastore, in the early 90s.
Then they re-organised, ditched all the miniatures, and moved the RPGs and card games into the basement.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Isn't WGF (China) still producing the plastics for Malifaux and Kingdom Death?

Also, Defiance Games (not "Defiant") are the ones who ripped of Natalya Alyssa Faden, took her money for Torn Armor and delivered nothing. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/alyssafaden/torn-armor/posts/726991

My bad, I was probably thinking of these guys...



Also founded by people kicked out of their own company...

Apologies for Defiant Games if they exist. Yes it was Defiance that put out some Sci-Fi USMC, some snakes and then disappeared with some people's money.

They were very, very good as playing the martyrs after the Chinese manufacturer took over, actually they had quite a good dialogue with fans on their forums. IIRC after they lost the company they managed to keep control of the forums so managed to wage a nice propeganda war.

Like I said, a lot of promise. The whole 'pitch an idea and we'll make the most popular' plan could work. Have people put some money upfront to show commitment and provide capital, offer chances for feedback, rigorously police it for impractical ideas (again, The War of Spanish Succession comes to mind) and... it could work.

Had lots of fun back in the day arguing whether or not to put chainsaws and cricket bats on the zombie survivor sprue.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
It wasn't that difficult back before the Internet, either. I saw Battletech, Star Wars, Aliens and Kryomek minis in my local Virgin megastore, in the early 90s.
Then they re-organised, ditched all the miniatures, and moved the RPGs and card games into the basement.

I'd forgotten Virgin Megastores.

Used to visit the one in Edinburgh when I was up there. Interesting to see random model ranges.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
It wasn't that difficult back before the Internet, either. I saw Battletech, Star Wars, Aliens and Kryomek minis in my local Virgin megastore, in the early 90s.
Then they re-organised, ditched all the miniatures, and moved the RPGs and card games into the basement.

I'd forgotten Virgin Megastores.

Used to visit the one in Edinburgh when I was up there. Interesting to see random model ranges.

True, the Megastores of the mid-90's were pretty awesome for nerd gaming supplies, sadly my nearest one was 2 hours away as they only most existed in citys

Same. My local would've been Oxford Street. Not exactly accessible on a teenagers meagre monies.

Since the subject of Mongoose Publishing's Dredd licence was mentioned, I thought it might be semi-relevant to note that I finally got my last item from the Judge Dredd Miniatures Game Kickstarter today. nearly 5 years late.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Since the subject of Mongoose Publishing's Dredd licence was mentioned, I thought it might be semi-relevant to note that I finally got my last item from the Judge Dredd Miniatures Game Kickstarter today. nearly 5 years late.

..... but you got it! That is way more than can be said of many, many kickstarters.

Probably doesn't help that you get a small company that manages to produce a very good game, but doesn't have a clue where to go next.

Dystopian wars was good, but once you have a fleet or three for it what do you do? Whats bringing in the revenue after that?

Eventually you get to the point where the new units you add are not worth bothering with, the new faction is basically an old one with different models, it stagnates.

Tycho wrote:

Anyone remember the CCG glut?

Anyone remember Chronopia? I don't recall the name of the company that made it, but it was amazing. They went under and I was never sure of the specifics.

Chronopia was from the same company who made Warzone.

leopard wrote:
Probably doesn't help that you get a small company that manages to produce a very good game, but doesn't have a clue where to go next.

Dystopian wars was good, but once you have a fleet or three for it what do you do? Whats bringing in the revenue after that?

Eventually you get to the point where the new units you add are not worth bothering with, the new faction is basically an old one with different models, it stagnates.

Yeah that I can see. I mean people talk about lack of support but Dystopian Wars had Ottoman Turks, both the English Raj and the British East India Company, Lithuania... At some point you have to ask what is feasible and what will bring in new buyers (for the record I love my Turks and they brought me in).

I can see why they tried 28mm with Dystopian Legions since the new scale appeals to new fans, but prices were GW level insane.

Dystopian Legions wasn't 28mm, despite what Spartan claim on their website.

It probably would have sold better if it was.

 insaniak wrote:
Dystopian Legions wasn't 28mm, despite what Spartan claim on their website.

It probably would have sold better if it was.

Wasn't it actually closer to 32mm or 35mm? Either way I'm one of those who wanted to play it but saw the prices and never took another glance. It's a pity really because there were some lovely miniatures in that range. Spartan really shot themselves in the foot with those prices. If someone were to buy the rights to that range and re release it at a sensible price point I would be all over it. Even if the rules are no good or simply discontinued because you can always find a different ruleset to use minis with.

 insaniak wrote:
Dystopian Legions wasn't 28mm, despite what Spartan claim on their website.

It probably would have sold better if it was.

Yeah, I would have been happier with Dystopian Legions if it was 28mm.

I got some Rising Sun units, and the giant Medics still annoy me and it has been about 2 years since I got them.

Is Ex Illis officially closed yet?

Huh, no.

http://www.ex-illis.com/

Looks like they even added some products.

Failed Kickstarter though.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/672225583/ex-illis

Funding Unsuccessful
This project's funding goal was not reached on December 6.

I hate how KS shows the date, but not the year, 2016? 15? earlier?

Ah there, 2013!

I wonder if I placed an order would it be fulfilled.

Always wanted their big demon dude.

What was that game that used an electric pen doobery thing?

Saw it being played at my local club, but then never again?

Would that have been Golem Arcana or whatever it was called? I've never seen anything to do with that locally, if it was sold in my area it was dead on arrival.

 Nick Ellingworth wrote:
Would that have been Golem Arcana or whatever it was called? I've never seen anything to do with that locally, if it was sold in my area it was dead on arrival.

Ex-illis did it before Golem Arcana.

I tried Golem Arcana once, it was okay but only really worth it at the Kickstarter price.

Ex-Illis was one of those odd...place your miniatures on a gridded table...then shuffle them around...then hit this buttont to determine the effects. I.e. "you should just buy a computer game". There's probably merit somewhere for that idea, but they didn't pull it off, at all.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
What was that game that used an electric pen doobery thing?

Saw it being played at my local club, but then never again?

I believe the company that did Golem Arcana are gone to the great clearance bin in the sky. The game for sure if not the company.

 StygianBeach wrote:
I tried Golem Arcana once, it was okay but only really worth it at the Kickstarter price.

The issue with Golem Arcana they couldn't move fast enough to make their software what it should have been from the start. Wargame with ipad interaction meant they could have designed it to 2vs2, 1vs1, etc remotely without the need to have both players present. It also would have provided them ability to play an AI. It required both players to be present at the same location, which doesn't capitalize on the ipad/computer ability. These features were supposed to come later but after 1 1/2 years, people who were waiting to buy never did and moved on to other things.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Is Ex Illis officially closed yet?

Huh, no.

http://www.ex-illis.com/

Looks like they even added some products.

Failed Kickstarter though.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/672225583/ex-illis

Funding Unsuccessful
This project's funding goal was not reached on December 6.

I hate how KS shows the date, but not the year, 2016? 15? earlier?

Ah there, 2013!

I wonder if I placed an order would it be fulfilled.

Always wanted their big demon dude.

I had an Emmissarius. He was impressively huge, but all of his seams were really blatant, requiring some real work to fill and hide. I ended up giving him to someone who wanted him for a Nurgle conversion. Still, not a bad buy for $50.

I think in the UK at least, the lack of independent FLGS hasn't helped non-GW games that aren't big enough to get some release through modelling stores and the like.

The taxation of smaller shops is utterly ludicrous - you need some serious cash turnover to keep even a small shop in an out of town location running. It's not just wargaming stores - music, computer gaming, electrical, clothing, there is very little that has survived other than large chain stores that have the capital to keep their retail stores running.

I definitely think that the internet has helped a great deal - helping players of smaller games to connect, and smaller publishers to distribute their games, but it's an increasingly crowded marketplace, with a lot of games and miniatures of excellent quality, and so it stands to reason that some of those companies are going to fall by the wayside.

 Nick Ellingworth wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Dystopian Legions wasn't 28mm, despite what Spartan claim on their website.

It probably would have sold better if it was.

Wasn't it actually closer to 32mm or 35mm? Either way I'm one of those who wanted to play it but saw the prices and never took another glance. It's a pity really because there were some lovely miniatures in that range. Spartan really shot themselves in the foot with those prices. If someone were to buy the rights to that range and re release it at a sensible price point I would be all over it. Even if the rules are no good or simply discontinued because you can always find a different ruleset to use minis with.

They are even bigger, i used the steam bikes as jet bikes for my space marine chapter, some of the figures were almost 40mm

The electric pen thingy was Golem Arcana, and I saw some of the actual product on seasonal clearance at Barnes & Noble a long time ago. The idea of digitally locking one's physical miniatures is just awful, not to mention the sheer inconvenience of requiring a tablet of some sort just to play. Between it and Ex Illis, I'm super glad to see that particular business model fail.

Seems there are a couple of physical/digital hybrid games out there in the toy world.

Disney dimensions? I think? You buy figures and that lets you add them to your game.

And a lot of CCGs where you can scan the card.

So with enough capital and presence it can work. Just not for small niche wargames.

Funnily enough, Disney pulled it's version - just wasn't working out for them.

Mongoose have the most amazing rulesets. Battlefield:Evolution, and Starship Troopers are exactly how modern/sci-fi games are supposed to play. The gang warfare Dredd miniatures rulseset is nothing short of amazing. If you haven't tried it - you have to. It's the best skirmish set of rules I've ever played.

They also were very innovative in their pre-painted concept with Battlefiled. I remember the absolute vitriol thrown their way on the interwebz when they announced the pre-paints, but games like X-Wing have really shown there is a market for this concept.

Their actual miniatures though were just not that great. The Battlefield minis were true scale at a time when most people had only ever seen a human miniature in the guise of a GW plastic Catachan, and the sculpts and poses were just not very interesting. The Dredd miniatures were a disaster - monstrosities, all of them, but they have their fans out there. But damn, those rules. Matt if you're reading this: the Dredd rules are your enduring legacy to this hobby. They are criminally under-appreciated but will long be revered. You should be very, *very* proud of them.

Yeah not sure why Disney pulled it. Seemed to be selling alright, we have a ton of the figures in my house and my daughter loves being able to switch the characters out.

Mongoose have the most amazing rulesets. Battlefield:Evolution, and Starship Troopers are exactly how modern/sci-fi games are supposed to play. The gang warfare Dredd miniatures rulseset is nothing short of amazing. If you haven't tried it - you have to. It's the best skirmish set of rules I've ever played.

Didn't play Dread so I can't speak to that, but the rules for Gangs of Megacity One were amazing. Mongoose didn't write the rules for SST though. The hired Andy Chambers as a freelancer to do it, and while a very cool base rule set that was innovative for it's time, it also had some issues that became increasingly apparent as the game scaled up. MGP didn't retain Andy after he wrote those rules and they didn't seem to have anyone on staff capable of properly dealing with those issues so SST became a bit of a mess later on. Sort of like 7th ED 40k where, if you played the game at 3 different stores, you were literally playing 3 different versions depending on how each group decided to "fix" the rules. SST - you'll never play the same game twice. Literally.

I hated BFevo. It turned the SST rules into something akin to a simpler version of checkers.

They also were very innovative in their pre-painted concept with Battlefiled. I remember the absolute vitriol thrown their way on the interwebz when they announced the pre-paints, but games like X-Wing have really shown there is a market for this concept.

"Innovative" is a bit strong here. Rackham, WizKids and several others were already doing pre-paints and that's where MGP got the idea. IMO, the vitriol at the time (and you are correct, there was MUCH vitriol) was not specifically because of "pre-paints". It was because, after a long history of Matt S. coming on the forums and announcing that "This next release for xyz game system will be the single most incredible release that has ever been released!"; followed inevitably by a release that was not only late AND underwhelming, but often also terrible to the point that you wondered if you were being trolled, people got tired. So when Matt came out and said "We're going to pre-paints, but don't fret! These will be painted better than 90% of gamers can do by hand! They will be AMAZING!", people decided to yell at him right then and there rather than wait the several months for the release to happen and then yell. As you point out below, they were not wrong to be mad.

Their actual miniatures though were just not that great. The Battlefield minis were true scale at a time when most people had only ever seen a human miniature in the guise of a GW plastic Catachan, and the sculpts and poses were just not very interesting. The Dredd miniatures were a disaster - monstrosities, all of them, but they have their fans out there. But damn, those rules. Matt if you're reading this: the Dredd rules are your enduring legacy to this hobby. They are criminally under-appreciated but will long be revered. You should be very, *very* proud of them.

The EVO sculpts were notoriously bad. So bad in fact that Matt had to go online only hours after the first stores recieved theirs and started freaking out. I'll never forget him saying "This is unnaceptabe and I will get to tthe bottom of it! This is not what we approved!" or something along those lines. This was followed a bit later by him saying "I spent some time going around to the local shops looking at the EVO mminis and you know - they're not half bad.". Battlefield Evolution died right then and there. It was a classic example of MGP having a great idea, failing to deliver, and then failing to take responsibility for said failure to deliver. For those of you who don't know what we're talking about - picture the little rubber "GUTS" toys from the 80s but a little taller, a little thinner and with about the same paint job and that's what the EVo minis were.

MGP had amazing ideas for games, but was simply incapable of really delivering. The saying in my area at the time was "You've been 'goosed". Meaning you bought into the hype but now now you have a pewter Brain bug that came with two left halves and 9oz of extra flashing covering a 3 oz model. We always felt like the ultimate combo would be for MGP's idea men to get together with GW's design and production staff. THAT would have produced some truly incredible results imo.

These were the Battlefield Evolutions troop prepaints. To be honest many were worse than this. They were "poor-to-medium" tabletop quality at best in a 28mm "truescale". They weren't that bad really, (Except for the eyes! Man, those googly eyes!) and the tanks were OK (if apparently a bit small for the supposed scale of the troops) but MGP just totally lost credibility when they claimed they were the best thing since sliced bread, and it was taken as insulting when Matt claimed that 80% of wargamers couldn't paint as well as them. And they were expensive for what looked like jumped up Poundland army men.

They appealed to the "wargamer" market, but totally bypassed the "hobbyist" segment. Anyone who took a pride in their models just didn't need apply. Turned out that the "wargamer" segment of the market are prepared to pay way less for their toys than the hobbyists are. Which, if you think about it, explains a lot about GW's business model! The quality of the ruleset was good, and the models were ... adequate ... if you were more interested in playing the game than looking at the spectacle of the thing, as many wargamers are. But that market segment wasn't large enough to support the game at the prices charged. The kind of people who are more interested in the game than the painting/collecting side tend to sling their models in a fishing tackle box with no padding, and while there's absolutely nothing wrong with that (the fact is the older I get, the more like that I am becoming myself!) people with that mindset won't pay premium prices for their toys, because they are simply playing pieces for a game, with little-to-no intrinsic value to them beyond their function in the game.

If somehow the economics had worked out to enable them to market them at half the price they did, then they'd have had a chance. As it was it was always a pipe-dream.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Moving subject to Ex-illis, there is a fair summary of the way the game worked and its good and bad points on Neil Shuck's blog:

https://meeples.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/ex-illis-now-simply-ex/

And it makes me feel incredibly sad to realise that this was way back in 2011, which seems like only yesterday!