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None that are played with any regularity. At least around where I am. The occassional frostgrave game gets played once in a while in someone's basement but people aren't talking about it.

Remove 40k tournaments and you lose most of your 40k players here. Guaranteed. Remove xwing tournaments and you lose most of your xwing players here. Guaranteed.

The stores here all know that as well, thats why they pump out events. The stores here that don't have regular tournament events go out of business quickly because without tournaments, no one plays the games with regularity.

And if you lose a chunk of your players like that, the ones remaining that don't play tournaments will fold soon after because there are few people to play against.

The big games near me are 40k, Warmachine, and X-Wing. They all have regular tournaments. There is a smattering of smaller games but t hose are played by private groups and have a small following, but nothing to the degree of the other three.

Legion will live or die by its tournament scene in the US, just like X-Wing does. What it does in the UK and other parts of the world I cannot say as I have no experience there.

It is similar in Germany
of course there are a lot of games around a local group lays at home, as there is still a Battletech, Necromunda or 40k 2nd Edi scene

than we have BloodBowl, very popular without official support but only because there are tournaments and Events

the only reason 9th Age is played so much here is because it is the main ETC game

and while Germany has a lot of X-WING Events, Austria has like 1 or 2 and a community only exits near the border to Germany

running official organised events is necessary to get the game running
If ETC would replace 40k with Legion or Warpath 40k would just be another small game like many others

There is a non-competitive scene in the USA, because you see it on The Miniatures Page, the Lead Adventure Forum and on podcasts (Meeples and Miniatures, for example), and just in the fact that there's plenty of "small press" games out there if you know where to look. However, it seems to be pretty small, and perhaps mostly historical games. IIRC, the venues are private homes in the main, rather than clubs.

Non-competitive scenes by is own nature always make much less "noise" and receive much less attention from the community.

Tournaments is wheres the money at. You don't see the World Football Cup of casual games in the street.

I don't think Legion will hurt 40k by stealing it's playerbase. I think 8th has shown that a great deal of GW's fanbase are like beaten spouses, who at the slightest hint their ex has in any way changed for the better they rush back, ignoring their past and insisting they always loved them. At the slightest hint of improvement, people dropped Warmahordes/Infinity/Malifaux like a bad habit because if there's one thing a great deal of wargamers have it's buyer's remorse.

No, Legion will 'hurt' 40k in that it will attract a great deal more players from existing games like Assault and X-Wing. FFG have the resources to really push their products. They're really the closest thing to major competition in terms of resources Games Workshop has ever really had. Even PP is a comparatively very small company. Couple this with arguably THE most iconic IP in media and you've got a recipe for some kind of success at the very least. Those new players won't care about the cards and the unique dice because they've not known any different. That and I think people here are really overestimating how much the average person gives a toss about it.

A lot of X-Wing players may not have looked at tabletop wargames because of the assembly and painting required, however if they cast a glance at Legion then it could serve as an effective gateway drug. Imagine if Games Workshop started producing a game where it came pre-painted. How many people here would be more likely to pick that up than any other company doing it? it's a vice versa for FFG games. The exclusive X-Wing player would be more likely to buy into Legion despite that need to paint.

The one place Legion will probably flounder is in the UK. GW still have the trump card of having a big high street presence to attract just about every potential newbie but in the Americas I expect it to really do well.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
There is a non-competitive scene in the USA, because you see it on The Miniatures Page, the Lead Adventure Forum and on podcasts (Meeples and Miniatures, for example), and just in the fact that there's plenty of "small press" games out there if you know where to look. However, it seems to be pretty small, and perhaps mostly historical games. IIRC, the venues are private homes in the main, rather than clubs.

Sure, there is indeed a tiny scene, but the money will not be made from that group.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On the arguable need for FFG to up their general release pace...I'd say it's more important they properly sort out their stock.

Yeah. They just need to be able to properly anticipate demand and be willing to take the, very very tiny, risk that they over produce.

Currently they're basically unwilling to over produce anything. They would rather sell out and have to wait months and months for a reprint than have a portion of their stock leftover for the future.

It's like they don't realize that they have a Star Wars license and a pretty popular one at that. That's basically a license to print money.

 Arbitrator wrote:
I don't think Legion will hurt 40k by stealing it's playerbase. I think 8th has shown that a great deal of GW's fanbase are like beaten spouses, who at the slightest hint their ex has in any way changed for the better they rush back, ignoring their past and insisting they always loved them. At the slightest hint of improvement, people dropped Warmahordes/Infinity/Malifaux like a bad habit because if there's one thing a great deal of wargamers have it's buyer's remorse.

No, Legion will 'hurt' 40k in that it will attract a great deal more players from existing games like Assault and X-Wing. FFG have the resources to really push their products. They're really the closest thing to major competition in terms of resources Games Workshop has ever really had. Even PP is a comparatively very small company. Couple this with arguably THE most iconic IP in media and you've got a recipe for some kind of success at the very least. Those new players won't care about the cards and the unique dice because they've not known any different. That and I think people here are really overestimating how much the average person gives a toss about it.

A lot of X-Wing players may not have looked at tabletop wargames because of the assembly and painting required, however if they cast a glance at Legion then it could serve as an effective gateway drug. Imagine if Games Workshop started producing a game where it came pre-painted. How many people here would be more likely to pick that up than any other company doing it? it's a vice versa for FFG games. The exclusive X-Wing player would be more likely to buy into Legion despite that need to paint.

The one place Legion will probably flounder is in the UK. GW still have the trump card of having a big high street presence to attract just about every potential newbie but in the Americas I expect it to really do well.

Of course this is purely conjecture on my part, since I can't speak for the world - however our xwing club in town is the largest gaming club in our region... dwarfing even 40k. When they tallk about Legion, a good majority of them are not interested in Legion for a mix of they aren't interested in army games, and they aren't interested in having to glue and paint their own stuff.

If Legion came prepainted, a lot of those folks would at least buy the starter and try it. As it is, a large chunk of them won't touch it because they are not interested in gluing nor painting.

 auticus wrote:

 Arbitrator wrote:
I don't think Legion will hurt 40k by stealing it's playerbase. I think 8th has shown that a great deal of GW's fanbase are like beaten spouses, who at the slightest hint their ex has in any way changed for the better they rush back, ignoring their past and insisting they always loved them. At the slightest hint of improvement, people dropped Warmahordes/Infinity/Malifaux like a bad habit because if there's one thing a great deal of wargamers have it's buyer's remorse.

No, Legion will 'hurt' 40k in that it will attract a great deal more players from existing games like Assault and X-Wing. FFG have the resources to really push their products. They're really the closest thing to major competition in terms of resources Games Workshop has ever really had. Even PP is a comparatively very small company. Couple this with arguably THE most iconic IP in media and you've got a recipe for some kind of success at the very least. Those new players won't care about the cards and the unique dice because they've not known any different. That and I think people here are really overestimating how much the average person gives a toss about it.

A lot of X-Wing players may not have looked at tabletop wargames because of the assembly and painting required, however if they cast a glance at Legion then it could serve as an effective gateway drug. Imagine if Games Workshop started producing a game where it came pre-painted. How many people here would be more likely to pick that up than any other company doing it? it's a vice versa for FFG games. The exclusive X-Wing player would be more likely to buy into Legion despite that need to paint.

The one place Legion will probably flounder is in the UK. GW still have the trump card of having a big high street presence to attract just about every potential newbie but in the Americas I expect it to really do well.

Of course this is purely conjecture on my part, since I can't speak for the world - however our xwing club in town is the largest gaming club in our region... dwarfing even 40k. When they tallk about Legion, a good majority of them are not interested in Legion for a mix of they aren't interested in army games, and they aren't interested in having to glue and paint their own stuff.

If Legion came prepainted, a lot of those folks would at least buy the starter and try it. As it is, a large chunk of them won't touch it because they are not interested in gluing nor painting.

This is likely due to a huge portion of Xwing players not being table top gamers in general. They got exposed to the game by picking it up not at a game store. They see it as a board game. They just can't fathom a game where you assemble and paint the figures.

Hobby games that require you to spend the time assembling and painting miniatures will always be more of a niche market with a very limited customer base.

The number of people willing to spend more time assembling and painting than they do playing is much smaller than the number of people that want to buy a game and get to playing.

X-Wing should have demonstrated that plainly for everyone to see with its huge success and ability to pull in new players to the miniature table top. Those people playing X-Wing have had years of exposure to the more hobby related games such as Warmahordes and 40K because (At least in the US) the stores they are playing in generally carry both. Legion is not going to suddenly make all of those people who were not interested in assembling and painting change their mind.

I personally don't see it as succeeding but I like FFG as a company that generally produces really quality stuff so I hope I am wrong.

Thats why I think that if FFG produced prepainted preassembled Legion kits that it would dwarf 40k in an instant, and the snowball would grow so large that 40k players would shed 40k for it as the playerbase would be huge and guarantee constant games AND a world championship series.

Wonderwolf wrote:
Dunno. From a FFG business perspective I would doubt they'd want to tie their company fortune for decades to a pricey IP with very limited creative control, constantly at the mercy of some IP guy over at Disney.

Disney is, at least, much more professional about this than Lucas Film where creative decisions and pricing seemed to be purely at their whim. Much safer to do this with Disney than with Lucas.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:
Dunno. From a FFG business perspective I would doubt they'd want to tie their company fortune for decades to a pricey IP with very limited creative control, constantly at the mercy of some IP guy over at Disney.

Disney is, at least, much more professional about this than Lucas Film where creative decisions and pricing seemed to be purely at their whim. Much safer to do this with Disney than with Lucas.

Aye. Disney is much more hands off than Lucas.

Disney also only recently got this IP. They want to expand it, so they're going to be quite open to suggestions for stuff from people they have the license with. And it's not like Disney can micromanage everything. Disney was huge before they bought Star Wars, now they're even bigger. They simply can't micromanage anything.

Heck, they're probably thrilled to have Xwing. Its a way they can reuse some of the older IP they've inherited. Like the newly announced Gunboat and other more obscure star wars vessels. Legion also gives a good opportunity to reuse some of the more obscure IP from the system.

 auticus wrote:
Thats why I think that if FFG produced prepainted preassembled Legion kits that it would dwarf 40k in an instant, and the snowball would grow so large that 40k players would shed 40k for it as the playerbase would be huge and guarantee constant games AND a world championship series.

I dunno. Many 40k players love the hipster elitism they try to claim.

 auticus wrote:
Thats why I think that if FFG produced prepainted preassembled Legion kits that it would dwarf 40k in an instant, and the snowball would grow so large that 40k players would shed 40k for it as the playerbase would be huge and guarantee constant games AND a world championship series.

I think the argument of pre-painted vs unpainted is a nonstarter. Legion is unpainted. That's not going to change this late in the game.

For me personally, as a player of OTHER miniature games, I'm glad Legion isn't pre-painted. With Imperial Assault and Runewars, I've seen a ton of new painters take up a brush. The rising tide raises all boats, I say. Every miniature game out there will benefit from new players willing to tackle the additional challenge of assembly/painting. Seriously, once I started painting, I no longer felt that miniature games were beyond my reach and started trying almost all of them.

Quite honestly, I've seen more painted Imperial Assault miniatures than painted Warmachine miniatures. Painting is not nearly as intimidating as it seems, but it isn't trivial either. I imagine painting a monopose Stormtrooper will seem more achievable than Belisarius Cawl, and people not ready to leap head first will find something relevant to dip their toes in. I think there are a lot of board gamers out there who love miniature-heavy games and are looking for something more substantial and ongoing to sink their teeth in. I think they'll look greedily at Legion at first, and eventually outgrow it.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:
Dunno. From a FFG business perspective I would doubt they'd want to tie their company fortune for decades to a pricey IP with very limited creative control, constantly at the mercy of some IP guy over at Disney.

Disney is, at least, much more professional about this than Lucas Film where creative decisions and pricing seemed to be purely at their whim. Much safer to do this with Disney than with Lucas.

Tell that to Knight Models. They had their Marvel license yanked without notice and that was less than a year ago. They had to recall all their product, destroy all inventory, and kill a bunch of products mid development. The theory is that they weren't happy the company was also having a DC miniature game, but I don't recall any justification being given.

FFG is living by the IP sword. It runs the risk of dying by the IP sword. It has been 5 years since X-wing was released. The question is how much longer is there on their license agreement before they have to renegotiate? It will likely cost a lot more to keep the license around when they do.

 silent25 wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:
Dunno. From a FFG business perspective I would doubt they'd want to tie their company fortune for decades to a pricey IP with very limited creative control, constantly at the mercy of some IP guy over at Disney.

Disney is, at least, much more professional about this than Lucas Film where creative decisions and pricing seemed to be purely at their whim. Much safer to do this with Disney than with Lucas.

Tell that to Knight Models. They had their Marvel license yanked without notice and that was less than a year ago. They had to recall all their product, destroy all inventory, and kill a bunch of products mid development. The theory is that they weren't happy the company was also having a DC miniature game, but I don't recall any justification being given.

FFG is living by the IP sword. It runs the risk of dying by the IP sword. It has been 5 years since X-wing was released. The question is how much longer is there on their license agreement before they have to renegotiate? It will likely cost a lot more to keep the license around when they do.

Knight's announcement sounded more like they couldn't afford to renew DC & Marvel at the same time as buying Harry Potter. I don't know how the Warner Bros licensing is handled but Disney is upfront cash so that 100% of the risk is on the licensee.

One quick note:

A bunch of years ago, when Warmachine was still young, I had a discussion with the store owner about the staples of gaming.

There were three games that most gamers assumed would keep their top spots forever- Magic the Gathering, Warhammer 40k and Dungeons and Dragons.

But the thing is, D&D did fail. TSR went bankrupt and the IP was sold off to Wizards. At the time we were talking, D&D had re-secured its top spot in RPGs (this was before 4th ed and the rise of Pathfinder).

Ultimately, I think that there isn't a "too big to fail." If Wizards or GW don't care for their IP well, they could be toppled.



As for FFG- they run games on a cycle for the most part. They support for a while, have a bunch of expansions, then let the games go out of print for a while, then bring it all back with a new edition.

This has shown to be a working business model for them, but it might prevent them from spending 20 years center stage.

Games Workshop runs with a lifestyle policy- if their sales drop off for a game, they try to revive it right away rather than focusing on other things for a while.

Obviously, this has worked for them.

The market does seem fairly stable though.

Whilst 40k has been through multiple iterations, it still plays much the same as it always did in terms of turn structure, forces, roles for each weapon type.

Warmahordes has seemingly stuck to its guns in a similar way. I'm by no means up on it, but the central role of your Warcaster remains, and armies are still constructed around how to best exploit that feat, and when to trigger it. Not to my taste of course, but seems to serve them more than well enough to keep heads above water.

I think the more interesting thing to look at are the games that didn't stick around. Again that's an area I'm massively ignorant in, so others will have to contribute. But several have come and gone. Question is why?

Given GW and Warmahordes can pump what is essentially the same old same old, why did newcomers to the market struggle in such numbers? Were the models not to taste? Was there some fatal flaw in the game itself?

If we can garner something akin to a consensus, that'll likely be a better way to work out if Legion has what it takes.

I still think Star Wars is hampered by the presence of only two legitimate factions (I know, scum n villainy but... meh).

So you buy a handful of ships and you're done.

It's not so bad in X wing as you're able to swap ships and cards in and out, but how well would 40k have done with ultramarines vs tau? Think about how many don't care for either aesthetic.

 Grey Templar wrote:


This is likely due to a huge portion of Xwing players not being table top gamers in general. They got exposed to the game by picking it up not at a game store. They see it as a board game. They just can't fathom a game where you assemble and paint the figures.

This seems a very elitist statement, considering the complaints of "grey plastic" armies in 40K. *I* spent the last two weeks of my vacation assembling and painting 40K minis, and I'd take up a prepainted game in a heartbeat rather than fiddle with more minis to desprue, assemble and paint - playing is a much better use of my time than painting and assembling, I beleive.

On topic, it would be nice if FFG could offer prepainted figures for Legion as a "premium" service - at the very least, Dust did this and Warlord offers (offered?) it for their Bolt Action tank line.

X-Wing might have made its top spot out of the same thing the Wii did- it can get more casual people in, but more importantly, it is a hardcore gamer's second system.

X-Wing won't cut into your 40k hobby time, after all. And you don't need tons of ships to play- plus the games are pretty quick.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:The market does seem fairly stable though.

Whilst 40k has been through multiple iterations, it still plays much the same as it always did in terms of turn structure, forces, roles for each weapon type.

Warmahordes has seemingly stuck to its guns in a similar way. I'm by no means up on it, but the central role of your Warcaster remains, and armies are still constructed around how to best exploit that feat, and when to trigger it. Not to my taste of course, but seems to serve them more than well enough to keep heads above water.

I think the more interesting thing to look at are the games that didn't stick around. Again that's an area I'm massively ignorant in, so others will have to contribute. But several have come and gone. Question is why?

Given GW and Warmahordes can pump what is essentially the same old same old, why did newcomers to the market struggle in such numbers? Were the models not to taste? Was there some fatal flaw in the game itself?

If we can garner something akin to a consensus, that'll likely be a better way to work out if Legion has what it takes.

I'll resist the urg to argue with you about your characterization of Warmahordes tactics (I find them to be a lot deeper than 40k) but we can talk about what it takes to make it.

I generally think it takes 3 elements:

1- Rules have to be good, and unique. I have to not feel like I'm playing a game I'm already invested in.
2- Minis have to be good (and possibly unique in style)
3- Fluff has to have appeal.

They need these things in order to build up a following. At some point, the following is really what you need to build the game (players teach new players, and local groups will keep things moving). After that, you really don't want to offend huge swaths of your customer base by changing out the things they love (or else you'll be in for trouble).

When I first started collecting minis, GW's stuff was the best around. I could also play Battletech (and I did) but the rules were a lot more cumbersome. GW minis were the best around, and the fluff for 40k was already unique.

Warmahordes has all three of these things. They're all distinct from other things on the market- and they were more distinct when Warmahordes was building steam (styles of minis has really diversified lately).


So of course neither of them want to offend their core audience. They won't be changing the more essential elements of their game, because they don't want to kill off the things their fans love.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
For balance?

Aside from the constant requirement to upgrade, many of X-Wing's fault lie with the players.

And that is true about any discussion of balance on any game, more or less.

The fact of the matter is that balance is in the hands of the game maker and it's possible to strike close to 50% win rate for any faction if you try, as some online games have demonstrated.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ced1106 wrote:
* FFG has dropped support of game lines (eg. BattleLore 2nd edition) in the past, and I doubt GW will drop 40K (although I would have doubted they'd drop Warhammer Fantasy

I think it would be more accurate to call it a reboot.

Reboots are good - I personally love the new Trek, even if it's not the old Trek, at least the actors and the movies don't look like gak.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The more interesting question may be: will Star Wars small scale miniatures draw more attention and interest to 40K and actually improve their sales rather than hurting them ?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The market does seem fairly stable though.

Whilst 40k has been through multiple iterations, it still plays much the same as it always did in terms of turn structure, forces, roles for each weapon type.

Warmahordes has seemingly stuck to its guns in a similar way. I'm by no means up on it, but the central role of your Warcaster remains, and armies are still constructed around how to best exploit that feat, and when to trigger it. Not to my taste of course, but seems to serve them more than well enough to keep heads above water.

I think the more interesting thing to look at are the games that didn't stick around. Again that's an area I'm massively ignorant in, so others will have to contribute. But several have come and gone. Question is why?

Given GW and Warmahordes can pump what is essentially the same old same old, why did newcomers to the market struggle in such numbers? Were the models not to taste? Was there some fatal flaw in the game itself?

If we can garner something akin to a consensus, that'll likely be a better way to work out if Legion has what it takes.

To run a game company is 10% creative and 90% all the other stuff like finance, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, human resetc. As gamers, we tend to only look at the product but to successfully run a game company there is so much more to it. I am guessing it is one of these areas that leads to a games failure more than the game itself. I would imagine the number 1 reason is insufficient liquid cash flow to service existing debts i.e. financing.

Companies that survive more than 5 years are the miracle exception and not the rule.

The creative is the easy part. There's thousands of "idea guys" out there who can't turn that into an actual product, or who can get as far as releasing some stuff but can't manage the business end of it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The market does seem fairly stable though.

Whilst 40k has been through multiple iterations, it still plays much the same as it always did in terms of turn structure, forces, roles for each weapon type.

Warmahordes has seemingly stuck to its guns in a similar way. I'm by no means up on it, but the central role of your Warcaster remains, and armies are still constructed around how to best exploit that feat, and when to trigger it. Not to my taste of course, but seems to serve them more than well enough to keep heads above water.

I think the more interesting thing to look at are the games that didn't stick around. Again that's an area I'm massively ignorant in, so others will have to contribute. But several have come and gone. Question is why?

Given GW and Warmahordes can pump what is essentially the same old same old, why did newcomers to the market struggle in such numbers? Were the models not to taste? Was there some fatal flaw in the game itself?

If we can garner something akin to a consensus, that'll likely be a better way to work out if Legion has what it takes.

Just look at WoW and all the other much betters MMORPG that tried and died. Being the first and the bigger one gives you a great advantage, even if you are inferior in all shape or form. That doesn't means you can't fail after years and years of problems, you can see it with the expansion Warlords of Draenor for WoW, the worst expansion of the game, going down to something like 4 million suscriptions from 12 milions from his golden days in WoTLK. Now with Legion, they have recovered because they have fixed most of the problems, but only after they taked a BIG hit by that crap expansion, something like 8th edition of 40k and 7th.
I think that in that crisis moment, have they failed to correct the ship, probably that would mean their deads. But both of them, in their lowest moment, achieved to got out of the hole.

 odinsgrandson wrote:
One quick note:
A bunch of years ago, when Warmachine was still young, I had a discussion with the store owner about the staples of gaming.
There were three games that most gamers assumed would keep their top spots forever- Magic the Gathering, Warhammer 40k and Dungeons and Dragons.
But the thing is, D&D did fail. TSR went bankrupt and the IP was sold off to Wizards. At the time we were talking, D&D had re-secured its top spot in RPGs (this was before 4th ed and the rise of Pathfinder).
Ultimately, I think that there isn't a "too big to fail." If Wizards or GW don't care for their IP well, they could be toppled.
As for FFG- they run games on a cycle for the most part. They support for a while, have a bunch of expansions, then let the games go out of print for a while, then bring it all back with a new edition.
This has shown to be a working business model for them, but it might prevent them from spending 20 years center stage.
Games Workshop runs with a lifestyle policy- if their sales drop off for a game, they try to revive it right away rather than focusing on other things for a while.
Obviously, this has worked for them.

TSR had always been carrying a load of debt. In the publishing business, where you have to be able to refund stock that gets returned unsold, that is hugely dangerous.

In that end, that's exactly what sunk them - they got a big return, couldn't pay it, as a result couldn't print more and they were done.

Big companies can fail quickly- usually due to large losses combined with high operating costs. They don't actually have to lose all of their money in order to go out of business.


Now, I don't think that GW is headed for a fall. On the contrary, I think that they're new business model is really working for them, and I think it can continue for a long time to come.

The previous business model was all about cutting costs to increase profits- and it made the company look good until there weren't any more corners to cut and things just stagnated (during a time in which gaming in general was expanding).

The current model is about expanding their player base with 'gateway games' and even just attracting new players who won't ever get into their big two games. There are places to go with that in the long term, so long as they can keep it up (and I suspect that they can).

With the amount of SW films and shows coming out, the fan base, etc... SW could overtake 40k very soon.

 krazynadechukr wrote:
With the amount of SW films and shows coming out

Sure that translated perfectly into a huge playerbase for The lord of the Ring and it will for Star Wars too!