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Last year I honestly thought that we'd seen the start of what I would term near future gaming, what with the release of the Tomorrow's War rulebook and the likes of Defiance releasing near future plastic troops. Well, this has not really materialised has it? Tomorrow's was does not seem to have taken the market by storm and Defiance it has to be said should be renamed Deflated at this point in time! Only kidding, I'm sure long term that they will sort themselves out.

So what is on the horizon? Steampunk seems to have come from nowhere with a few companies now bringing out a lot of stuff with their own take on what steampunk is. Now here is the puzzler; will you be buying the minis to play steampunk or will you be using them for 40k? If you opt for the latter and if enough people also do likewise then a lot of figures will be sold. However; this won't do the Steampunk genre much good as no-one or not enough people will be buying into it to sustain it and so another genre will disappear!

I can't see Warmachine actually getting anymore bigger than it is at this point in time, I think it will just potter along at the same level in 2013. I suspect GW will continue to price people out of the games they produce; their shop policy now seems to be "Buy our stuff and get out of our shop!", I just can't see that idea being beneficial in the long run.
There are a few high profile skirmish games around at the moment such as Infinity and Malifaux, but would it be fair to say that they have just a cult following and unless something really revolutionary happens with them, that is how they will remain?

Back to Tomorrow's war. I honestly think that they did not help themselves very much by releasing a stand alone rulebook. They should have had an officially sanctioned range of miniatures to support it; people are looking for an all round experience when opting for a game system; 40k is the perfect example of that. Rulebooks need a hook; official minis fulfil that role. Otherwise there is no real compulsion to play.

Back on topic; so what will be the genre that will make us go "Wow!" next year? More than ever I can't see a clear indicator. I think maybe next year will just be filled with sporadic mini releases with no real destination for them in mind. Probably Dreadball will be a big hit for a while. I will say that Mantic really need to get their asses in gear in 2013 if they are going to make Warpath a big hit. They need to stop this plas-resin nonsense and go completely plastic; they have to get us the players/collectors totally sold on the game's universe otherwise they are likely to hit the ground like a lead zeppelin!(Not the band).

So what do you think?
Do some soul searching and rub yer crystal balls and predict what you see for 2013!

Fantasy Flight Games has set themselves up very well for 2013.

They have their various Warhammer 40k RPGs as well as a 40k based Talisman game due to release in 1Q2013. Their Star Wars RPG will probably be a big hit, as well as the new releases for the already popular Star Wars X-Wing miniature game.

I'm hoping the Batman miniatures game takes off

 kronk wrote:
Fantasy Flight Games has set themselves up very well for 2013.

They have their various Warhammer 40k RPGs as well as a 40k based Talisman game due to release in 1Q2013. Their Star Wars RPG will probably be a big hit, as well as the new releases for the already popular Star Wars X-Wing miniature game.

This and I forsee a few new rather good army books and codexes drop for WH40k & WHFB. Then beside that I think we will see much more Steampunk as the OP said, and yes. If I see a mini in that genre that fits my armies I will gladly buy it and use it in a 40k match.

Not really a prediction, but I'm hoping Battlefront build on the success of their Flames of War starter "Open Fire!" (assuming it was a success) and release more plastic infantry kits.

I'm also hoping that they continue to develop what is one of the more interesting websites around (aside from Dakka of course). Are there any other gaming companies that offer a series of well shot videos explaining how the game is played, alongside in-depth battle reports, designers notes and painting guides.

This is how you're supposed to engage with your customer base (certain other companies could learn a thing or two here).

I'm hoping that Warlord will release more of their Bolt Action range in plastic.

If, as OP predicts, Warmahordes keeps on in the same way it does currently I can not complain. It's a good time for Warmahordes in my area.

I forgot something I eralized, I hope for more Hail Caesar releases! And that they by the grace of the almigthy heavens get rid of those horid metal commander figures that comes with the roman auxiliary box.

Slipstream wrote:
Last year I honestly thought that we'd seen the start of what I would term near future gaming, what with the release of the Tomorrow's War rulebook and the likes of Defiance releasing near future plastic troops. Well, this has not really materialised has it? Tomorrow's was does not seem to have taken the market by storm and Defiance it has to be said should be renamed Deflated at this point in time! Only kidding, I'm sure long term that they will sort themselves out.

So what is on the horizon? Steampunk seems to have come from nowhere with a few companies now bringing out a lot of stuff with their own take on what steampunk is. Now here is the puzzler; will you be buying the minis to play steampunk or will you be using them for 40k? If you opt for the latter and if enough people also do likewise then a lot of figures will be sold. However; this won't do the Steampunk genre much good as no-one or not enough people will be buying into it to sustain it and so another genre will disappear!

I can't see Warmachine actually getting anymore bigger than it is at this point in time, I think it will just potter along at the same level in 2013. I suspect GW will continue to price people out of the games they produce; their shop policy now seems to be "Buy our stuff and get out of our shop!", I just can't see that idea being beneficial in the long run.
There are a few high profile skirmish games around at the moment such as Infinity and Malifaux, but would it be fair to say that they have just a cult following and unless something really revolutionary happens with them, that is how they will remain?

Back to Tomorrow's war. I honestly think that they did not help themselves very much by releasing a stand alone rulebook. They should have had an officially sanctioned range of miniatures to support it; people are looking for an all round experience when opting for a game system; 40k is the perfect example of that. Rulebooks need a hook; official minis fulfil that role. Otherwise there is no real compulsion to play.

Back on topic; so what will be the genre that will make us go "Wow!" next year? More than ever I can't see a clear indicator. I think maybe next year will just be filled with sporadic mini releases with no real destination for them in mind. Probably Dreadball will be a big hit for a while. I will say that Mantic really need to get their asses in gear in 2013 if they are going to make Warpath a big hit. They need to stop this plas-resin nonsense and go completely plastic; they have to get us the players/collectors totally sold on the game's universe otherwise they are likely to hit the ground like a lead zeppelin!(Not the band).

So what do you think?
Do some soul searching and rub yer crystal balls and predict what you see for 2013!

Sorry Slipstream, Steampunk/VSF has been around for ages, along with the minis. It'll carry on reagrdless of what the 'not x' brigade want or need.

Mantic will deffo need to up their game. I can see more KS style marketing from them. I can't help thinking that one of the three from Mantic will become 'specialist'.

FFG will carry on doing great things, especially with StarWars./ Can't wait to see what comes out there.

Even more obviously. more companies will try to crack the 25 year old nut that is GW's progress and try and grow too fast too soon. KS will become a weight around some releases necks. More canny operators will carry on as they are.

AOW should do great things next year.

Kromlech will release bowler hatted Orc heads!

At some point toward the end of the year there will be a 'so, did anyone play sedition wars?' thread.

Well since 2013 will be "The Year of the Kickstarter" I'm thinking/hoping we'll see some growth in new lines like Relic Knights. So far though, all we need is Reaper to make a Rulebook for a skirmish game that uses their models and the whole world of model collectors will be set. (That seems like it'd be a fun game to make)

One or two GW price increases of 15-30%.

...each.

I wrote this about what I thought would happen in 2011 in the non-GW world:

 theHandofGork wrote:
Warlord's coming out with Blackpowder variants for Ancients & English Civil War. Their models are great, and they sell other companies (like the Perry's) stuff on their site as well. I think warlord will own historicals next year. I also think we'll be seeing more and more WFB empire players using 28mm historical mini's rather than GW.

I think, like Kid Kyoto, that Mantic makes great minis for a great price, but are so focused on being a GW replacement that their own game will be largely, but not completely, ignored.

PP moves from strength to strength, I expect their plastics to continue to improve.

Still, let's face it, no one is poised to take over GW's dominant market position by the end of 2011.

Looking at 2013 I expect the same.

Mantic remains a GW replacement, their ruleset notwithstanding.
Warlord gains strength with new games covering more historical time periods. I'm just waiting for a SF or Fantasy game from them.
PP still grows, but slowly.
Kickstarter and lower startup costs means more and more new games.
GW still remains the big player, but with continuing declines in its customer base compensated for by increased prices.

Don't care for historical miniatures, so,what I'd really like to see is more killer sci if stuff from Corvus belli, 2012 was a great year for them. Id also like to see more awesome kits from GW. Wyrd has also impressed me and I'd love to see a plastic line from them. Not resin, not pewter, but plastic.

I am hoping for awesome things for DUST:Warfare. I am also hoping everyone jumps off the GW band wagon on onto DUST:Warfare. There are a lot of players near me. But more are always better.

My predictions:

I will buy a new apartment.
PP will continue to grow. It has passed its growth spurt stage already, but it has kept growing since 2010 at a steady, stable rate and its customer base is happy about the direction of the game. The IKRPG also seems to be a nice vacuum cleaner into the wallets of its players, at least that is the local impression.
Infinity/Corvus Belli will grow, as its media presence is now quite noticeable. The same applies for Malifaux/Wyrd.
Mantic will putter along as a GW armyparts service.
Spartan will either make or break it in 2013 or 2014: they have put out a lot of miniature games these last few years, which has kept them growing, but that is not a stable business model. So this or the next year is the year they either make it big or either sputter along or go into decline.
Historicals will be historicals.
Odd kickstarters will flare up, some will deliver, some will not.
One contender game - be it Relic Knights, DUST, Dropzone Commander (my fervent hope, that) or any of the other up-and-coming ones - might strike big.
GW's success will be dependent on how "The Hobbit" works out - and not only their figure line, but the movies as well. I am not sensing the buzz about the movies that we saw back in 2001. Myself, I am seriously worried that three movies will mean more PJ, wife & crew fan fiction - and the fan fiction they put into the last trilogy was not stellar, to put it mildly. If the movies and merchandice do well and GW capitalize on that with the miniatures, we might see a new surge in their profits. If it doesn't do as well as the original LOTR, they will take a slight dive, or stay on the slow decline we've seen these last few years.

I predict I will again spend more money then I should on little plastic toy soldiers...

But I also want to see even more cool things from Dust..I may make it my priority this coming year..based on how well GW updates the Tau (if at all)

I have decided to save for a 3d printer and a 3d scanner and make forays into that as a hobby next year.

Lets hope for good things..so long as a meteor does not kill us all on the 21st (j/k of course)

The film about the Hobbit will be a discrete flop. GW The Hobbit a big flop. GW will increase prices and reduce retail. If everything else fails, they will get a Space Marine new Codex.

WarmaHordas will have a success inversely proportional to GW.

Infinity will get some plastic models (I can't wait!). Malifaux plastic models will get better (I can't wait!). (I will spend the year playing both!)

Kickstarter is going to rule the independent scene. Lot's of small independent games vs GW.

The Hobbit will do just fine at the theaters.

Forge World will release 3 more Primarchs and Abbadon vs. Loken, in addition to another HH book and IA12.

I'll spend too much money on the above.

Since no one else has commented on your view of Tomorrow's War, I will:

Slipstream wrote:

Back to Tomorrow's war. I honestly think that they did not help themselves very much by releasing a stand alone rulebook. They should have had an officially sanctioned range of miniatures to support it; people are looking for an all round experience when opting for a game system; 40k is the perfect example of that. Rulebooks need a hook; official minis fulfil that role. Otherwise there is no real compulsion to play.

You have a fundamentally flawed view of Tomorrow's War. It is not 40k. It is not Infinity. It is not Warpath. It is not a set of rules that gives you official minis, army lists, and points, and lets you show up at a club to bash out a few games. It is a set of excellent rules that, through a little effort on the player's part, allows two or more players to use whatever sci-fi minis they want (to a reasonable level) to play scenarios.

The game doesn't need official minis, because their are enough miniatures out their already. I haven't begun my 15mm project yet, so we just use my friend's 40k figures. The 'in-game' universe is, as we're told by the authors themselves, completely arbitrary, and is used to provide examples. The pictures, if you haven't noticed, are of miniatures from a variety of manufacturers. You can use you miniatures from Rebel Minis, GZG, Khurasan, etc. In fact, restricting the book to AAG's 'line' of miniatures would have hurt the book, instead of helped it.

Quick note - doesn't Tomorrows War have an official miniatures line from Ground Zero Games?

Related - Bugs Don't Surf will be released. Hell will freeze.

If you take the prices of the new Hobbit miniatures as an indicator towards the new level of pricing for new releases, I get the feeling that Fantasy, 40k, and especially LotR SBG/The Hobbit will lose a significant amount of players in Australia next year. It's reached the point where casual players are no longer willing to pay as much, and there are very few new players coming into the hobby because they can't afford it.

If most of the players leaving the GW side of the hobby stick around, I'd expect to see games like Warmachine, Hordes, Infinity, etc. becoming more and more popular in the land down under.

I predict 2013 will be a big year for dreamforge

A GW price hike and only 1 40k codex

2013 won't be happening the sky is falling remember! I predict the survivors will be a couple nerds in their fallout basement playing Warhammer starving to death...their last game winner gets to eat the loser!

I predict I will buy more stuff that will only get partially built/painted.


Ill also second this:

 ironicsilence wrote:
I predict 2013 will be a big year for dreamforge

I predict some 3rd party resin casters to come out will complete lines of miniatures.

I also predict I will start a 30k army with Anvil Industries Steam lords, because I can't justify paying twice the cost for FW.

WGF will have a great year. Dreamforge plastics, Wyrd plastics and (according to rumor) Mantic's new plastics will all do very well for them, as well as their cheap historicals and (indubitably inevitable) vehicles.

Renedra will lose many fed-up clients.

Vacceo wrote:


The film about the Hobbit will be a discrete flop.

Ill have £50 with you that the Hobbit is at the top at the box office in the US/UK within a week of its release easy.

Now, I'm in full agreement that GWs range might not to so well, but don't let our hobby distract us from the rest of the real world.

GW Hobbit may well suck, but trust me, fantasy has been on the up and up in the mainstream world since the first LOTR movie, and A Game of Thrones on HBO cemented its entrance from "slightly nerdy past-time" to acceptable movie/TV viewing for the average Joe, even most of my family/non book reading/mini collecting friends got into it.

So trust me, Hollywood Hobbit is going to be fine and dandy.

 mattyrm wrote:

Vacceo wrote:


The film about the Hobbit will be a discrete flop.

Ill have £50 with you that the Hobbit is at the top at the box office in the US/UK within a week of its release easy.

Now, I'm in full agreement that GWs range might not to so well, but don't let our hobby distract us from the rest of the real world.

GW Hobbit may well suck, but trust me, fantasy has been on the up and up in the mainstream world since the first LOTR movie, and A Game of Thrones on HBO cemented its entrance from "slightly nerdy past-time" to acceptable movie/TV viewing for the average Joe, even most of my family/non book reading/mini collecting friends got into it.

So trust me, Hollywood Hobbit is going to be fine and dandy.

Two things to consider:

1. In December, the Hobbit can both flop and be the top film at the box office for a while. It just has to have a better week than the rest of the flops out that week.

2. The Hobbit will no doubt open well based on the success of LOTR, and thus score a successful opening week. However, if the film is as Peter Jacksony as it looks like it might be, word of mouth will kill it before it accumulates enough dough overall to be a success. Just look at all the high profile sequels that opened big but still lost money.

So trust me, Hollywood Hobbit is going to be fine and dandy.

Yes absolutely, think the Hobbit film will go down a storm. Big Xmas cinema attendance, and as Mattyrm says 'fantasy' isn't so nerdy any more after the first LoTR films, Harry Potter and Game of Thrones. However, if that translates into GW sales like it did before? Not a chance - I worked for the company during that time and it was chicken oriental - it made GW into the lumbering, publicly owned behemoth it is today. I can't imagine it hitting those heady heights again, even though it will certainly make them a lot of money!

Predictions for next year:
- (I hope) a gradual and continued rise of the industry overall. I heard 20% for last year, would be nice if that can continue despite the overall economic difficulties. Better internet marketing, an increase in professionalism should hopefully mean some of the newcomers over the past few years cement themselves in the marketplace. The continued presence of these other games on the marketplace helps to give many more gamers a more pluralistic attitude towards wargaming in general.
- Continued rise of Corvus Belli, and more people playing that great game!
- GW continue to release exactly the same thing we have seen for the last 10 years or more, with the odd playmobil-esque giant plastic kit thrown in for good measure. The price rise hits as per norm, spawning the usual 60+ page thread (HBMC swears he will never buy any more, which lasts for exactly 1 month ).
- More big-scaled Kickstarters, perhaps even from one of the bigger companies who could not possibly have ignored the money they have brought in. Might also see a crash or two and some form of rejection from the fan community towards one of the more cynical attempts.