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Ailaros wrote:It's not that there weren't competitors, it's that the competitors failed, so we don't remember them as easily anymore.

I was talking about actual options. Games that fail tend to end up in the clearance bin and disappear from store shelves. And this was in the early days of the internet, before getting customers and producers directly together was anywhere nearly as efficient.

The period I'm talking about is a veritable graveyard of failed ventures. if you want to consider that a time of great variety, you're welcome too.

GW ends up dominating the UK gaming store scene and causes most non-GW gaming stores there to close. They grow from being a UK only company to being an international one. Again and again alternatives pop up and fail to get any sort of traction. All the while, historical miniatures are humming along nicely with variety in both rules and scales being the norm. When GW starts giving away it's market share near the end of the LOTR bubble, we start seeing the return of fantasy and sci-fi options that actually stick around.

I don't think I'm saying anything at all misleading. I think people who had their pet game from the 90s fail are just sore about it.


.

The diversity we are seeing in the market is the best thing that has happened for wargaming in a long time. Before wargaming really was not much at all really , with only one game dominating it wargaming did not have much and hence stayed pretty darn niche. However now that the market is becoming healthy and diverse I can only say wargaming has a real future for it and the more games the better , the more diversity and more likelihood of someone getting into wargaming seeing a setting or miniatures range they like.

To be honest from personal experience, with the lack of diversity I knew way back a few years I simply never got into wargaming, until I discovered 15mm sci fi and through that all the diversity in all scales in wargaming, that is what brought me back into wargaming. So I believe it is very, very good too see this diversity start up again as this will truly drive the market too grow and more wargamers to come in and grow the potential market for any game. It was the lack of diversity in wargaming that has kept wargaming far below card games and board games in terms of popularity and market size. Now I see wargaming truly growing and having the potential to grow into a larger not so niche as it once was market .

I think it's a fantastic time. I have one or two small (and some not so small) factions for infinity, war machine, dust, and x wing, as well as armies for 'the big two'. I'm also looking at malifaux. I love the variation in models for painting, as well as the range of rule sets. Long may it last.

 Vulcan wrote:
1) Skirmish games. There's a ton... and I don't like skirmish games. There are two 'army' games - WFB and Kings of War. That's it that I'm aware of.

Which is fine. But there's absolutely an audience for them. Back 10 years ago, you had Necromunda or Mordheim, if people still had their stuff, to pester for a game. GW just wasn't supporting them anymore, so there was not much interest. There were other games, but as others have pointed out, the air of failure hung over many, very good, non GW games. So it was hard to get people playing.

Now there's more, and they're supported by their companies. So people play them. if you're a fan of skirmish games, you have choices now.

Simply saying the current game offerings are bad because you don't like them is fairly selfish. Especially when, for example, skirmish game fans have begrudgingly sat through the ever increasing game sizes of 40k or Warhammer Fantasy until they got this current bounty.

 Vulcan wrote:
2) Community. I can go to the local FLGS and pick up a game of WFB with ease. 40K and Warmahordes is also well represented. Beyond that... you have to hunt up another player for a different system and make an appointment to play them. It's a lot of extra hassle, and I don't have THAT much extra free time.

This is a very American attitude. Outside of America, people form clubs and gaming groups, and gaming at peoples houses is not uncommon at all. Within a club environment, getting a new game started just requires a bit of effort. Skirmish games are fairly easy in this environment - buy two Malifaux crews or Infinity starter boxes or whatever you need from your game of choice, buy some terrain, and ask people to try it out. The great thing about a club setting is there's regulars who turn up every week/fortnight/month at the same time, so the player base builds up as people are introduced and introduce others.

The idea of only playing pickup games against strangers, or at least infrequent acquaintances at the store, is simply not a good environment for building up interest in a new game.

 ionusx wrote:
I'd like to discuss the state of affairs with miniature war gaming and my question is: are their too many.

Nah.

 ionusx wrote:
With the dawn of crowdfunding we have seen a massive influx of New games and new companies.

I know, isn't it great? The 'little guy' can have such an opportunity to succeed if they're willing to work hard and avoid copying off the big players. My only regret is that nobody's rebooted Chronopia, and the latest iteration of VOID don't inspire me.

 ionusx wrote:
. I gave concerns that this will water down the drink so to speak. I'm all for competition in this market, Lord knows we need it. But at what point do we draw the line tossing upstarts with some liquid plastic in a mold, a box of dice, and a book of rules before our market falls apart. When there is too much competition in a niche market like mwg's what you get is a community that is broken up and fragmented into a bunch of different Subgroups.

Good games will always rise to the top! While there might be the occasional confusing period where games are changing popularity, there will generally be a few big games and several less popular games. This guarantees a lack of confusion in the community and if you just want to play the game that everyone else is playing, you'll never have issues finding a match. This is how it rolls, GW or no GW, crowdfunding or no crowdfunding. People play what other people are playing until a game makes it 'big' and becomes commonly played.

 ionusx wrote:
And with fewer people to go around to attract to your game your going to see an already niche community become even more niche and more isolated. I'm worried that this will cause serious damage to the industry.

The industry is still recovering from the debilitating loss of the various games GW tossed out the window after their dawn. I'll give you a primer (assuming anyone in the world bothers to read this crap.)

In the beginning, there was gaming
During GW's ascent, there were a lot of games. A piking lot! And I don't just mean the ones we know (40k, Fantasy) or the ones we remember from recent memory (Necromunda, Specialist Games), I'm talking about the other games; Dredd, Chainsaw Warrior, Warhammer Quest, Dark Future, Gorkamunda, just to name a few. You could make the argument that this helped GW's domination of the market- they covered a million niches with their different systems (a million more with their miniatures), and expanded on the ones that people liked. There was a lot of stuff out there during this period, some of it low-quality. The worst of it was refined out, until it was forgotten (and not missed, really).

Oi! Dat's My Leg!
The next era was further refining and killing. Warhammer Historical vanished completely, their site shut down. The 'Specialist Games' were relegated to a miserable hole, and it almost seemed like GW was ashamed it still existed. Anything that wasn't Warhammer Fantasy and 40k (and to a lesser degree, LoTR/Hobbit) was denied White Dwarf coverage. GW knew that a quick death would be too terrible, so they had decided to just kill off the Specialist Games slowly.

Now they're all gone. Necromunda, Battlefleet Gothic, Warmaster, Epic, Blood Bowl, and the other specialist games were all actual wargames that were supported. People played them! Now they're gone and the space they took has been taken by Fantasy and 40k. The market was getting more homogenous, not less, and the crowdfunded stuff has arisen to fill the hole that GW created.

underfire wargaming wrote:
The diversity we are seeing in the market is the best thing that has happened for wargaming in a long time. Before wargaming really was not much at all really , with only one game dominating it wargaming did not have much and hence stayed pretty darn niche.

Dont confuse the GW Hobby with wargaming...

There is a bit of a false dichotomy going on here: that there is only the comparison of the graveyard of games from the 1990's to the current state of the games.

There is a reason for the failure of those games, and it is important to remember the competition they had. In 1993 M:tG launched and is still with us today - and predictably, they were faced with a glut of competitors which materialised very quickly. Most of those faded away, but M:tG survived as did a handful of other games. Now we have a mature CCG market which has its perennial success, but also has new entrants (ie MLP).

Contrast this to GW: founded 1975 as a games company with other companies making the miniatures for their games and other systems (Citadel MIniatures(whilst funded by GW was a separate company), Ral Partha etc) and the importer for D&D from USA(!). GW had boardgames like Talisman, Chainsaw Warrior, Dungeon Quest etc. Eventually, GW take over the miniature market as Bloodbowl, WFB and W40K start to take over the hegemony. It is interesting to note that TSR products, Call of Cthulu, MERP etc were all sold by GW in its' first 1-17 years. It isn't until 1991 that they promote their own products exclusively. At one point Gygax himself was considering a merger with GW.

Figures for MERP disappear, and for other systems too, and there is a decline in the use of mini's in the RPG format. The external miniature market enters decline as they tool more for the games that GW are making, as they are owned by GW.

It is important to note that despite growth from 1991- 2000 across multiple territories, they start having issues with profits, some of it being blamed on - you've guessed it - M:tG!

This is the battleground that those failed wargames in the 90's faced...a GW focusing on it's now core market of younger gamers, the expansion of the stores and the consolidation of WFB and 40K as the core offering as well as other, new formats storming into the fray. It is into this mix we also have the failure of TSR as they make mistakes, which is then rescued by WotC.

Several years on, there has been a jettisoning of many of the smaller games that GW made, some being picked up under licence (like Talisman) and others just being left to die off (Battlefleet Gothic etc). This is the niche that many others have now stepped into, with the smaller games being more accessible as the margins are wider (in the economic sense - no competition for the smaller game market after GW withdraw it's smaller games).

Coupled with the expansion of 'Geek culture'. these games are seen in a more favourable light, and the market growth all around has been phenomenal. This has led to an expansion of boardgames, card games, and tabletop games from a period of stagnation and low growth.
I know that anecdotal evidence isn't the best, but I can remember going into big department stores and finding shelves upon shelves of different RPG's and supplements, of which TSR dominated, but wasn't exclusive. Then there were the 'Games books' Fighting Fantasy. There were all manner of board games, card games and spin offs.
As I got older, those departments shrank, closed down and you were lucky to find a single shelf elsewhere. FLGS started opening and closing with GW's moving in. The market shrank. Now there is a resurgence of FLGS and specialist retailers and GW is losing the grip it once had.

Will there be failures? Of course, not everything is a success. Will all these games be going as long as GW? Not likely, but then TSR went 30 years nearly before failure....we are in a market which I would suggest is no-where near the variety it once was, never mind saturation.

NB: this has been written with a purely UK outlook, as that's where I'm based. I have no first hand knowledge of the US markets.

Since you can often buy a full faction for the cost of an IG Battle Tank, and the mini's can be used in multiple games I really don't see the problem with having many games.

At that cost it's also very easy to have enough forces available for an opponent to borrow, so you just need to find a willing player rather than a player who has already bought into the system.

The only downside is maybe having to get up to speed on the rules if you haven't played for a while, but it's no different to pulling an old board game out of the cupboard.

I've got 1 28mm WW2 army I can use in 2 rulesets I own, and 2 28mm VSF armies I can use in 2 rulesets I own, and so on.

I don't play much at all. Once a year, maybe.

I like collecting little plastic dudes though, so I have two 40k armies (one dating all the way back to 2nd ed, ALL METAL!), an awful Lizardmen army, Deadzone with 4 factions, Dreadball with 4 teams (two Human, two Orx), X-Wing with two fleets and I'm currently looking at getting some Infinity factions.

I'll be making more effort to get in to the gaming culture locally, but not necessarily with GW games. I’m not prepared to shell out for the new rules for 40k and I’m awful at WHFB.

I think that having this little lot of other systems will make it easier for me to get involved, as the NWGC has a few decent X-Wing players and an Infinity scene. If I can get some Dz or Db action too, even better.

TL;DR – Lots of systems, lots of options, lots of opportunity for gaming and socialising.

 monders wrote:

TL;DR – Lots of systems, lots of options, lots of opportunity for gaming and socialising.

A good point. I've certainly got enough viable forces to be able to arrange a pick-up game at my local club whatever they play. If I stick to 1 or 2 then I'm only able to play those. For instance, I only got into Malifaux as it's the current big game at the club but now I'm totally hooked. Ditto with Infinity and Dystopian Wars (neither of which I've actually played yet due to Malifaux)

Oh yeah, the new Dystopian Wars box looks brilliant!

Siiiigh, let's chalk that one up too then, eh?!

This is actually a new development, traditionally historical wargaming was fragmented into separate miniatures manufactures and rules writers/publishers.

Whilst it was quite common for fantasy and sci-fi games in the 90’s (Warzone, Chronopia, Kryomek) I don’t think I ever saw historical miniatures being sold in accordance with a particular rule set before Battlefront introduced the concept with Flames of War in the early 2000’s.

I first staed gaming in the early mid 90’s as a teenager and one thing I noticed was that Fantasy and Historical gamers where far more segregated than they are now. Historical gamers where then a highly elitist bunch who started wargaming before GW existed and considered Fantasy gaming to the preserve of spotty teenagers and thus beneath them. Over the last 20 years we’ve seen a new generation of gamers who’ve grown up with GW and then moved to other systems and as a result are far more open minded when it comes to this way of doing things.

Variety is the spice of life!

 kronk wrote:
Variety is the spice of life!

'

I always enjoy these sorts of kronkisms

This is actually a new development, traditionally historical wargaming was fragmented into separate miniatures manufactures and rules writers/publishers. There where very few self contained 'wargames' and they where mainly Fantasy and Sci-Fi games such as Warzone, Chronopia or Kryomek most of which came and went.

I don’t think I ever saw historical miniature being sold in accordance with a particular rule set before Battlefront introduced the concept with Flames of War in the early 2000’s.

I first started gaming in the early mid 90’s as a teenager and one thing I noticed was that Fantasy and Historical gamers where far more segregated than they are now. Historical gamers where generally then a highly elitist bunch who started wargaming before GW existed and considered Fantasy gaming to the preserve of spotty teenagers and thus beneath them. A few Gamers existed who played both but they where generally under 30.

Now those younger gamers are middle aged veterans of the hobby and we've seen a new generation of gamers who’ve grown up with GW and then moved to other systems and as a result are far more open minded when it comes to this way of doing things.

 Accolade wrote:

 kronk wrote:
Variety is the spice of life!

'

I always enjoy these sorts of kronkisms

It's amazing how Kronk manages to sum up everything like this so many times.

Truly, the mark of a gentleman and a scholar.

 ionusx wrote:
I'd like to discuss the state of affairs with miniature war gaming and my question is: are their too many. With the dawn of crowdfunding we have seen a massive influx of New games and new companies. I gave concerns that this will water down the drink so to speak. I'm all for competition in this market, Lord knows we need it. But at what point do we draw the line tossing upstarts with some liquid plastic in a mold, a box of dice, and a book of rules before our market falls apart. When there is too much competition in a niche market like mwg's what you get is a community that is broken up and fragmented into a bunch of different Subgroups. And with fewer people to go around to attract to your game your going to see an already niche community become even more niche and more isolated. I'm worried that this will cause serious damage to the industry.

Now does this mean we should avoid the upstarts and stick to big box names. No not at all but I feel that we as a community need to be careful with who give our money too if we want to be able to have everyone enjoy the games that are available. Otherwise one day your going to day adepticon (as an example) and see literally a dozen or so guys playing one games and a dozen or so playing another and so on. And people getting all sorts of confused and lost in the pile of games the community has tried to bury them in.

The best thing about this hobby is that the "Industry" is always reinventing itself, and there are diamonds that surface again and again from almost out of nowhere. Your "markets" so to speak, are dominated by distribution. THAT is the reason why games are so ill used sometimes. If the game doesn't get a proper distributor, then they are floundering on their own, and trying to accomplish everything alone. Most shmoes out there do not have the sort of scratch that they used to not have to worry about to fund a game. NOW game comp0naies, just like everyone else are in a crush for their funding and resources, as well as trying to juggle distribution, advertising, and game development. Ma and Pa game companies have it even more so, especially when they have day and or night jobs to go to.
It is not 1976 or 1980 anymore. the boom times of paper and quality for free or next to free is not going to come back. The days when you had Wisconsin, or Washington targeting and keeping the game scene, where they had an endless pool of support right there is gone. These days globalized distribution, shipping, packaging, advertising, etc. are spread allover the country or several countries to the point where it is now sink or swim. The market is SEEMINGLY saturated, but at the end of the day, the game companies survive if they have a good product and can continue to keep players engaged and interested in what they have. As well as that, Gamers are a fickle lot. what was cook one minute, drops into the back of the closet pretty quick, especially if a company gets too big for their shirts.
Malfaux, I'll point right at you.

In the end though, you pick up games that are interesting to you, play them, and get people engaged. it hasn't changed very much in a decade or so, aside from some of the companies being closer to the fans where they can actually hear what their decisions effect, or affect to players on an even weekly basis.

Along with that extra incentive to not pee on your fans, there is the matter of funding and additional crowd funding for games.

To me, Kickstarter was either the best thing to happen to gaming, or the worst thing. In my opinion, especially now where everyone and their brother is an upstart games designer. You go, put up a project, promise a bunch of shinnies, and viola, your a games designer. EXCEPT that someone failed to mention that there was all of the additional traditional logistics of the game design and production. So at the end, crowd funding either saps resources, or cash that players would or could pay for market products. thereby expanding the games selections, but decreasing games bought in your Brick and Mortar stores.
Another thing that has come about is online buying of games, and the internet as a tool to download free rules sets, while you buy the figures. Less cash grab, or hamstringing yourself in the short term for the long term dollar/ R and D dollar, because if it sucks, you can easily just wipe the rules, start over a couple of times, till you get something that works, and then you can foot cash for printing and shipping and storage.


So yes, and no. And at the end of the day, it is all on what you and your particular group, as well as the countless other individual's and groups plays for games that defines the markets.
It is not too big, it is ever evolving, and good games last, and good idea fairies go back to the drawing board.

 TheDraconicLord wrote:
When it comes to miniature wargaming, no, not enough: Using the video game industry as an example, it crashed thanks to an endless release of mediocre games until it culminated with the infamous E.T. The keyword here is mediocre.

Unlike that particular dark moment, the wargaming games or boardgames with minis (like SDE, Zombiecide, etc.) are getting released with quality, with cool rules, with beautiful miniatures or cards or whatever it may bring.

Everything seems pretty ok right now, I hope it only improves over time.

P.S: Please, no badmouthing GW or 40k or Fantasy here... seriously, let's not turn this into another one of those threads.

I agree with him in this point. More games that are more affordable and release with good quality and rulesets are helping open up the expansion of miniature wargaming to those in it for and people who are new to it where as before, you needed an good investment just to start it.

For me, I view it as not enough, as essentially capitalism is taking place, creating competition in order for those games to stand out from one another and appeal to a different person. How I view it is that we are entering a cusp of a Golden Age of Miniature Wargaming, but we are not there yet.

Still not sure why folks are calling the 90's the "graveyard of games" Relative to the number of gamers, there were just as many games, and similar proportion of games that succeeded, failed quickly, or succeeded for a few years while and then failed.

Sure there are more games in all 3 categories today, but there are also alot more miniature wargamers, and it's that scale of gaming that means that right now feels like the golden age of gaming.

It's pretty simple really. Here's a couple of equasions.

Hobby growth over time x Internet = More Gamers

More Gamers + Their money = More games produced.

More Games = More Success full games + More Unsuccessful Games + More partially Successful games.

 kronk wrote:
Variety is the spice of life!

Amen to that

With all the complaints about GW in general, you should actually want lots more wargames so that the good ones can grow into things that can challenge and compete with GW, and competition is a good thing for us gamers/consumers.

Games have to start small, too. No one has the money to launch as big as GW, or even PP these days, with the kind of game that we'd want to play. Even the monster company that Fantasy Flight has become ditched their slightly more traditional minis game and went with a lucrative license and small scale game in X-Wing.

Which is also why I've decided to start collecting tiny armies of a variety of games that I like, and keep them with me when I go to hang out at the FLGS. Some games you just don't need to buy everything that comes out. I'll likely end up with armies for Dropzone Commander, Mechafront, Spectre, Bolt Action, Infinity, various historical games, and more. I can keep these small armies in a single case and lug them to the store as easily as everything else in my car.

Big P wrote:

underfire wargaming wrote:
The diversity we are seeing in the market is the best thing that has happened for wargaming in a long time. Before wargaming really was not much at all really , with only one game dominating it wargaming did not have much and hence stayed pretty darn niche.

Dont confuse the GW Hobby with wargaming...

I do not know were you got that from in my comment, far as I am concerned I don't view GW's games as real wargames myself, however sadly a lot of people think they are the only game out their, that was all I was implying in my comment. The GW hobby is most defiantly not the same as the Wargaming Hobby which is much more open too all sorts of games styles and scales.

Herzlos wrote:
Since you can often buy a full faction for the cost of an IG Battle Tank, and the mini's can be used in multiple games I really don't see the problem with having many games.

+1.

You can often play multiple systems with the same minis. Especially with historicals. And you often have one "dirt cheap" option (6/15mm or 1/72) lying somewhere around, which means you can often afford more than one army and play with your friends even if they don't have suitable minis.

I'm currently painting a DBA matching pair (Punic Wars) from Baccus. I will essentially play DBA and HOTT, but if I chose to expand these forces, I'll be able to play DBM, Warmaster Ancients, Hail Caesar too. I paid less than the price of a Tactical Squad, for two armies.

I'm also planning to start a WWII matching pair, probably Brits and Italians. Each force would include 80+ infantrymen and a couple of light to medium tanks. More than enough for most skirmish-level games like Bolt Action.
With 1/72 minis, the two armies would cost less than a single Leman Russ...

I think this time is a "Golden Age" for Game companies, but a "Dark Time" for actual Hobby retailers.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
2) Community. I can go to the local FLGS and pick up a game of WFB with ease. 40K and Warmahordes is also well represented. Beyond that... you have to hunt up another player for a different system and make an appointment to play them. It's a lot of extra hassle, and I don't have THAT much extra free time.

This is a very American attitude.

The idea of only playing pickup games against strangers, or at least infrequent acquaintances at the store, is simply not a good environment for building up interest in a new game.

So, as someone who has only ever lived in America, I'd have no way of really judging this, but I find this comment interesting nonetheless. On the one hand, it makes me curious about the more general trend - America and Australia are just two data points after all, and on the other it's not like people here never meet at people's houses or have private groups for things. But just because there are private things certainly doesn't negate the public - just because people gather in groups in their homes to watch the superbowl doesn't mean that the stadium where the game itself is being played isn't also packed to the proverbial rafters.

I wonder if it's the same amount of private gaming, but then with this whole other layer of public gaming added on (we Americans do love our sports and games), or is it, as you imply, a dilution of private with public.

In either case there does seem to me more of a emphasis on tournament and pick-up play, but then again, lack of data.

The idea of "pick-up games" seems to be almost entirely a US thing. I think that in Europe and Australia it's more common to have a "gaming club" that meets where you know everyone, so it's easier to introduce people with "Hey guys this is my buddy Jim from work, he's interested in the game" versus "Jim shows up at the game shop on miniatures night and hopes that the natives are friendly". It's also the idea that gaming clubs tend to be smaller and more close-knit so if you find one it's a lot more inviting to show up at the club and introduce yourself than walking into a game store filled with strangers and trying to figure out who's playing what and who can help you out if you're new.

As an aside I think that's part of the vast disconnect with 40k since 40k seems to be written for gaming clubs, not game stores.

The community differences are not that big of a deal.

GW has played up and upon that difference to try and justify how sloppy and exploitative they are in game design and business practices. Why make decent and comprehensive rules when you can shame your playerbase into doing your job of rules writing and balancing? It sickens me, as a game developer and a game player, to see grown men with jobs and lives having to spend valuable hobby/leisure time to do the job of a sloppy game developer just to play a game that he likes.

A lot of game store communities here in the US are actually every bit as tight as the UK's gaming clubs. There are many clubs in the US that are not centered around particular stores as well.

Also note that the UK's geography, being smaller than a US state forces people to live closer. And realistically it means that they're a minority in this concept.

GW in the UK has also killed the privately owned gaming store in most places, well, for a while anyway. Making it so that no gamers there have the option to form communities around their FLGS unless they want to stay in a corporate GW run store.

Sorry UK, Australia, and Europe guys, gaming clubs aren't some new thing in the US either. It's just that there is also the concept of the store on top of gaming clubs existing.

 Vertrucio wrote:

Sorry UK, Australia, and Europe guys, gaming clubs aren't some new thing in the US either. It's just that there is also the concept of the store on top of gaming clubs existing.

True, though there do appear to be definite differences, As folks have pointed out, it seems that most of these "clubs" in the USA meet in private homes, and don't have the documentation (charter, officers, minutes, etc) that many of the "foreign" clubs do.

I can't speak to areas outside of my hometown, but here in Chicago, I can think of at least 6 wargaming gaming clubs within 15 miles that meet on a regular basis (ranging from weekly to monthly), but I think that all of them meet in member(s) homes and I don't think that any of them have any kind of official documentation.

Definitely not too many wargames. More new entrants means more advancement in mechanics, new awesome settings and sweet new minis. Steam has brought about a PC gaming renaissance, Kickstarter and the internet in general has had a similar effect on the tabletop imo.

 LuciusAR wrote:
This is actually a new development, traditionally historical wargaming was fragmented into separate miniatures manufactures and rules writers/publishers.

Whilst it was quite common for fantasy and sci-fi games in the 90’s (Warzone, Chronopia, Kryomek) I don’t think I ever saw historical miniatures being sold in accordance with a particular rule set before Battlefront introduced the concept with Flames of War in the early 2000’s.

I first staed gaming in the early mid 90’s as a teenager and one thing I noticed was that Fantasy and Historical gamers where far more segregated than they are now. Historical gamers where then a highly elitist bunch who started wargaming before GW existed and considered Fantasy gaming to the preserve of spotty teenagers and thus beneath them. Over the last 20 years we’ve seen a new generation of gamers who’ve grown up with GW and then moved to other systems and as a result are far more open minded when it comes to this way of doing things.

That is slightly unfair. I must protest!

My first exposure to fantasy wargaming/role-playing was battle reports in Military Modelling magazine in the early 70s describing a game in which you moved your skirmish sized forces with heroes around different tables which represented islands with various fantastic hazards like dinosaurs or monsters on them. The theme was vaguely based on the Jason and the Argonauts and Sinbad films. I am pretty sure this was in 1973/4 because I remember the Yom Kippur war being discussed in the professional military magazines my father brought home from work. (He was working on guided missile development.)

Bearing in mind that MM was mainly a hardcore big display model painting mag, this was quite a departure for them, and it certainly did not grow out of D&D or GW exposure since neither of those companies existed at the time. It was historical wargamers trying something different, and no doubt reflected the spirit of the times as D&D and the RPG/Fantasy revolution was about to kick off. Let's remember that D&D arose out of a set of mediaeval skirmish rules.

Minifigs did some fantasy and SF figures around the same time, based on LoTR or their own inventions.

To go back to the point about the same company making rules and figures, it never really in historicals because you can't copyright a Sherman tank or a Guard Chasseur. Battlefront failed to stop players from using the rival 15mm models that started to be made as soon as their rules had become popular enough.

If you go to a big show like Salute now, though, it is probably roughly 50/50 historical and F/SF.