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My Friends and i have been playing 40k since we were kids but these days its just got to stale and expensive we have moved on to the Batman Miniatures Game its a small scale skirmish game and the models are truely beautiful anyway its only small scale at the moment but with Arkham origins and the new Batman film it has loads of potential

At my club Malifaux is quite popular.

Personally I've been intersted in starting WM with a scyrah army.

One of the reasons WM/H attracts those that are interesting in playing to win is that the rules are robust enough to support it. You can take every faction and make a competitive list or a casual list.

Keeping the thread alive.

I will soon be attempting to 'inceptionate' (inceptionize?) SAGA into the local Warmachine group at a nearby store. With luck, the similarities between the two games will bring some fo the Warmahordes players into the Historicals fold.

The early medieval period is really good for wargaming as well. With the lack of documentation it's the perfect place to invent your own "war duke" and his band of warriors.

To get back to the OP, part of the problem with non-GW games growing so much is that it's not really the growth of a small handful of options but the growth of many options. More options are good, but I'm finding that the player base of those playing non-GW games can be a bit fragmented in terms of options.

Fortunately the cost of the options being lower in many cases means that people can afford to play and collect many games and many lines of miniatures rather than just having a 40k army.

The internet is also helping big time. If you live in a major urban centre, there's probably some means of either targeted searches, face book groups, company forums, etc., that will allow you to find other interested parties in your location, even for the most obscure title.

frozenwastes wrote:
To get back to the OP, part of the problem with non-GW games growing so much is that it's not really the growth of a small handful of options but the growth of many options. More options are good, but I'm finding that the player base of those playing non-GW games can be a bit fragmented in terms of options.

It really isn't much different than it was before. There have always been a good number of non-GW games, and it's always fallen to fans of those games to gather their own player base. Infinity, WM, and FoW have held on much better than most competing-with-GW games did in the 90's and early '00's, but aside from them, the dynamic is pretty much the same. If you play small games, you are still taking a gamble as to how long they will last, and committing to extra work to find or build a playerbase.

Crimson-King2120 wrote:My Friends and i have been playing 40k since we were kids but these days its just got to stale and expensive we have moved on to the Batman Miniatures Game its a small scale skirmish game and the models are truely beautiful anyway its only small scale at the moment but with Arkham origins and the new Batman film it has loads of potential

Interesting that you would choose Batman. We (our club) looked at it briefly, but were turned off by the GW-ish sticker price for minis. My feeling is that without a mass of people who have been conditioned to GW pricing, the Batman game would never have gotten off the ground.

 Eilif wrote:

It really isn't much different than it was before. There have always been a good number of non-GW games, and it's always fallen to fans of those games to gather their own player base. Infinity, WM, and FoW have held on much better than most competing-with-GW games did in the 90's and early '00's, but aside from them, the dynamic is pretty much the same. If you play small games, you are still taking a gamble as to how long they will last, and committing to extra work to find or build a playerbase.

We're seeing something different now, I think. Both WM/H and FOW are over a decade old by now, and they have strong presences all over the globe. Infinity is 8 years old and seems to be hanging on, even if they aren't as big as the two aforementioned ones. In the old days, Warzone (the big 90s contender) died after a mere 5 when Target Games went under (I am not really counting Excelsior's effort after 2000), and Confrontation (the big noughties contender) started floundering when Rackham started their slide in 2007-2008. While the dead ones still have their fans they, much like Epic, didn't make it as broad market games.

It remains to be seen whether the newer companies - Wyrd, Spartan, etc - manage to keep expanding and pushing out new material and make it to the stage PP and BF are now, but you're not making much of a gamble if you want to play Flames of War or Warmachine these days. They're here to stay, I think.

The age of GW's competitors dying off because they can't compete is gone. Very few of the miniature companies that have popped up over the last ten years are gone.

And Warzone only died because other non-miniature related divisions of Target lost too much money. As for Rackham, I'm guessing it was the complete abandonment of their core market by switching to prepainted plastics that might have had something to do with it.

Kaptajn Congoboy wrote:

 Eilif wrote:

It really isn't much different than it was before. There have always been a good number of non-GW games, and it's always fallen to fans of those games to gather their own player base. Infinity, WM, and FoW have held on much better than most competing-with-GW games did in the 90's and early '00's, but aside from them, the dynamic is pretty much the same. If you play small games, you are still taking a gamble as to how long they will last, and committing to extra work to find or build a playerbase.

We're seeing something different now, I think. Both WM/H and FOW are over a decade old by now, and they have strong presences all over the globe. Infinity is 8 years old and seems to be hanging on, even if they aren't as big as the two aforementioned ones. In the old days, Warzone (the big 90s contender) died after a mere 5 when Target Games went under (I am not really counting Excelsior's effort after 2000), and Confrontation (the big noughties contender) started floundering when Rackham started their slide in 2007-2008. While the dead ones still have their fans they, much like Epic, didn't make it as broad market games.

It remains to be seen whether the newer companies - Wyrd, Spartan, etc - manage to keep expanding and pushing out new material and make it to the stage PP and BF are now, but you're not making much of a gamble if you want to play Flames of War or Warmachine these days. They're here to stay, I think.

I agree about WM, FoW and possibly infinity. I don't consider them to be "small" games anymore in terms of their fanbase and distribution. The field has changed in that there are a few more games with longevity. However, for everything else, it's still on the player to create a playerbase, and for most, it's still a gamble as to how long they will exist.


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 frozenwastes wrote:
The age of GW's competitors dying off because they can't compete is gone. Very few of the miniature companies that have popped up over the last ten years are gone.

But are those games thriving in a way that would allow a player to be able to easily find opponents and count on the games being regularly updated? I think not.
These smaller companies seem to be very good at finding niches within niches, but I don't see much sign of them sustaining growth like WM, FoW and Infinity. I really hope I'm wrong about this, and if more players are willing to undertake the efforts required to actively play small games things could change. However at this point I still think it's buyer be-aware (see what I did there....) of the limitations of small games.

 Eilif wrote:

I agree about WM, FoW and possibly infinity. I don't consider them to be "small" games anymore in terms of their fanbase and distribution. The field has changed in that there are a few more games with longevity. However, for everything else, it's still on the player to create a playerbase, and for most, it's still a gamble as to how long they will exist.

Looking closer at what I have of industry numbers and the ever helpful google trends search, I think Fow and WMH are by now extremely well established - it would be a real surprise if any of them disappeared in the next decade. Infinity is not quite there yet. it is growing, but as far as I can tell it has not surpassed Malifaux, for example (which is also growing).

There are, naturally enough, enormous local differences. In my dear old Norway, for example, only WMH, 40k and WHFB can easily muster enough bodies to hold tourneys that get over 20 people, for example. FoW has not taken off, Dystopian Wars had a brief spike followed by tumbleweeds, and Infinity and Malifaux remain niche games.

 Eilif wrote:


But are those games thriving in a way that would allow a player to be able to easily find opponents and count on the games being regularly updated? I think not.
These smaller companies seem to be very good at finding niches within niches, but I don't see much sign of them sustaining growth like WM, FoW and Infinity. I really hope I'm wrong about this, and if more players are willing to undertake the efforts required to actively play small games things could change. However at this point I still think it's buyer be-aware (see what I did there....) of the limitations of small games.

A lot of those games are scaled such that a player can easily buy and run 2+ factions, so that finding an opponent is just a case of finding someone with an interest in it and time, with no financial buy in. It seems to happen fairly often at my local club. Particularly skirmish games with 4-10 models each, means you can easily have 2 players worth of stuff + rules for under $100.

Herzlos wrote:

A lot of those games are scaled such that a player can easily buy and run 2+ factions, so that finding an opponent is just a case of finding someone with an interest in it and time, with no financial buy in. It seems to happen fairly often at my local club. Particularly skirmish games with 4-10 models each, means you can easily have 2 players worth of stuff + rules for under $100.

That's a good point. My club mostly plays indie skirmish warband-size games. It allows members to buy-in with only a small investment, especially since the games we play are almost all not tied to a specific miniature line.

I would say there are strong communities for a variety of games in the Lexington Kentucky area.

We have 2 stores that really bring in communities, the Rusty Scabbard and the Battleforge. The Rusty Scabbard has a hardcore playerbase of 40k, warmasomething, fantasy, X Wing, Magic, and RPG' as well as board game nights.

The Battleforge has 40k, Fantasy, Infinity, Flames of War, Bolt Action, maulifaux, RPG's, other historical that I'm not sure the name of, and I think I've seen war machine there too.

We also have a GW that somehow manages to keep a player base for 40k (poor gal running the joint has a bit of a fan club) and from what I've been told, there are a couple of independent gamers clubs in the area too, with large playerbases. No idea why we have such a large community, guess there's nothing better to do.

At the new FLGS in my area, Warmachine maulfaux are starting off huge with the obvious 40k Following.

Eilif wrote:
But are those games thriving in a way that would allow a player to be able to easily find opponents and count on the games being regularly updated? I think not.

I'm really not sure at what size we are talking about things now. We have a new version of Malifaux coming out and Infinity has had several expansions and whatnot. Or are those too big? Small labour-of-love rulesets seem to get updated more frequently than for profit ones, so the truly small don't have the update problems.

As for finding opponents, I've never had a problem thanks to the internet. When i was thinking of getting into Kings of War, I went to Mantic's forums and searched for the names of nearby towns and cities. I got in contact with a player and tried things out. Turned out the game wasn't for me, but it only took joining one forum, doing one search and sending a private message.

On top of that, you also have the approach of people supplying both sides and essentially running participation games that people have already mentioned. I can't think of a single rules set that I haven't been able to find a player for when I've wanted to play them.

But if someone wants to count on just showing up at a local store and happening to bump into someone who also has an army and just showed up, yeah, then these games definitely take more leg work.

Since the new store over by my job has opened ive seen people play 40k twice in three months every time im there its warmachine or MTG. 40k looks to have burnt out a little by me people mostly play at home or with there little groups. Ive went over into warmachine do to the price and the rules are just awsome! Ive always been a fan of converting minis and i think thats the only reason i hold onto 40k. I thought it was going to bug me with warmahorde (not being able to convert heavily) but it hasnt. Im glad to play the models the way they are, the stats cards help bring them to life. In a month of being into the game price wise ive been able to start almost every faction in warmachine. I still have RET and Cyrx to go then i will have all the factions started. What i also love is that every faction can be played and not get rolled all over by the faction that just got updated or a new mini came out for them. The two player set is cheap and is such a GREAT deal. The only grip i have is the casting i had a ton of knots and mold lines.

All of the below = my anecdotal observation, YMMV clearly.

WM/H has a very healthy presence in New England (actually, pretty much everywhere on the eastern seaboard i've been). From my anecdotal experience, give or take, less or more

40K has a very healthy presence, with Fantasy somewhat less so.

Infinity has pockets here and there.

Flames of War i know a few clubs / stores its popular with, but i'd say its a bit rarer. Most of the guys that i know that are still into it play in home leagues / basement crews.

Malifaux is about on par with Inifinity, Flames of war. It's played, just not something you see often in the local shop.

Out here in New Brunswick we have a fair mixture of games, but resolved most of our conflicts by having separated gaming nights (we have a really small store)

1. 40k
2. Warmachine/Hordes
3. X-Wing
4. Flames of War
5. Malifaux/Dust Warfare/Warhammer Fantasy all tied up
everything else is just groups of 2 or 3 pers.

The funny part is how my buddy and I will soon be playing 40K again, but with the 2nd edition rules. GW models are absolutely great, but their current rules really don't hold much over all the competitors out there. They just have tons of inertia behind them from all the years they were the juggernaut of the industry.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
The funny part is how my buddy and I will soon be playing 40K again, but with the 2nd edition rules. GW models are absolutely great, but their current rules really don't hold much over all the competitors out there. They just have tons of inertia behind them from all the years they were the juggernaut of the industry.

looking at the rules, I get the distinct feel that the way the game runs is to provide players with a heck of a lot of dice to roll at the start. Once the first buckets are rolled, at least to my experience, the game quickly shrinks from a war to a skirmish.....

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand it keeps games moving, and lets the turns rotate faster as patience starts to wear............