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 thekingofkings wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:

nobody wrote:
Man just saw Stevefamine had put his table and armies up for sale in the trade forum :(

My LGS has a wall full of the Bones blisters. I'm guessing it mainly sells to at-home RPG crowds because I haven't seen any on tables there.

Bones are meant for home (or store) RPGs. so makes sense to me.

Though Sam's Kids of War army (Forces of Nature) is pretty much all Bones, at this point. (Her parents have been in all of the Bones Kickstarters - they have a lot of gnolls, lizardmen, and bugbears.)

The Auld Grump

oh yeah you CAN very easily make armies out of them, the old game Dark Heaven Apocalypse is done with what are now all bones sculpts (used to be metals) especially the Anhur army.

I think that Bones are an awesome way to get kids into tabletop gaming - regardless of the system.

I have been toying with the idea of a Mordheim kids game... the problem is that I only have so much time, and way too many games already. But Bones would make it easy for the kids....

The Auld Grump - I used to run Mordheim for a yearly summer program. The guy that used to run the program passed away last year - one of the best people that I have ever known.

*EDIT* It would be the Kids of War game that would go away - I have way too much fun with the kids in my Pathfinder game. Right now they are all pirates.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:

nobody wrote:
Man just saw Stevefamine had put his table and armies up for sale in the trade forum :(

My LGS has a wall full of the Bones blisters. I'm guessing it mainly sells to at-home RPG crowds because I haven't seen any on tables there.

Bones are meant for home (or store) RPGs. so makes sense to me.

Though Sam's Kids of War army (Forces of Nature) is pretty much all Bones, at this point. (Her parents have been in all of the Bones Kickstarters - they have a lot of gnolls, lizardmen, and bugbears.)

The Auld Grump

oh yeah you CAN very easily make armies out of them, the old game Dark Heaven Apocalypse is done with what are now all bones sculpts (used to be metals) especially the Anhur army.

I think that Bones are an awesome way to get kids into tabletop gaming - regardless of the system.

I have been toying with the idea of a Mordheim kids game... the problem is that I only have so much time, and way too many games already. But Bones would make it easy for the kids....

The Auld Grump - I used to run Mordheim for a yearly summer program. The guy that used to run the program passed away last year - one of the best people that I have ever known.

*EDIT* It would be the Kids of War game that would go away - I have way too much fun with the kids in my Pathfinder game. Right now they are all pirates.

sounds like a blast.. we ran AoS for some of the school kids here, they actually liked it (its pretty simple)

Yeah, there was several successful hobby school programs posted on Reddit that had a lot of success with getting kids into the hobby with AoS and the basic ruleset.

Always a good sight to see kids getting away from videogames and their phones and do something constructive like painting up Skaven and Spearmen.

There's also Mordheim gamers that use basic AoS rules for streamlined skirmish games as well.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Frankly with X-Wing, I was a big fan of it back when it came out, but all the releases just left me behind. At this point, my buddy has tons of the traditional ships and the CR-90 from the first few waves. I may just get a couple of cool empire ships like a couple Starwings, a Gozanti and Raider (maybe even the big TIE bomber), and we'll have a nice enough combined set to play home games of 'X-Wing vs.TIE Fighter', and spice things up every once in a while with the Epic ships.

I just couldn't have any fun chasing all the necessary cards, especially the ones that are 'fix' cards, to have any fun as a casual-only player across all the releases with FFG's release model. Theres literally, what thousands to sort through now? Ugh.

I am finding Star Wars Armada to be much more accessible for my home games, as I always have to buy both sides anyway the card chasing is hurts much less with the smaller ship selection.

I can't be bothered keeping up with all the guddling about with upgrades. The last few games I've played have been multi-player games; "pre-designed" flight groups (Luke, Biggs and Wedge, Darth Vader and his two wingmen, that sort of thing. Or flight groups of two or three generic Y-Wings, TIE Interceptors, etc), with no upgrades other than droids or ordnance. Seems to work well enough. We also threw in a quick game as part of our Age of Rebellion RPG campaign. Every so often, I think about trying to write up some of the old TIE Fighter missions, but I'm too lazy at the moment, and no-one else is interested. :(

Based on the prices in the Cyber Monday sale I worry that CMONs Wrath of Kings is not going to be around much longer especially since whatever supply issues they had at the beginning of the year pretty much killed the 2nd edition relaunch (Edit: and don't even think of being able to get stuff in the UK unless you want to pay crazy well above suggested retail prices)

(I wonder if the designers who were pushing it are still around as CMON seems to have a fairly rapid turnover)

their Dark Age rules/minis didn't get the same discount so I think that will hang around

I was a big time player of 40K from 3rd edition, through 4th and 5th and even into 6th. At that point, I just started to lose interest. I kept up with WFB a little longer, but I dropped out entirely with the release of the last edition of that game. I though about picking up AoS once the Generals Handbook came out, but there just wasn't enough interest locally to make it worthwhile to me.

A while ago I became interested in Flames of War and managed to get a fair size gaming group together for that. After moving I didn't play for a while until I hooked up with a new group who were into FOW. I've been mostly playing mostly that, and the Team Yankee game by the same publisher for the last several years.

I've also been dabbling with several other systems, including Saga, Wings of War, Frostgrave, and Star Fleet Battles.

I just got the new starter box for Necromunda (my first GW purchase aside from paint in years) and I'm hoping there will be enough local interest to support some campaign play.

 Pacific wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Flames of War V4 seems to be an absolute train wreck. I moved away from my old group but according to them V4 and Team Yankee are a gakstorm of epic proportions.

With Team Yankee, I thought the added pace of the game and destructive power of the weaponry suited the theme of modern combat perfectly (you can imagine it being like that, compared to WW2). And I don't think it's a bad game at all, with a lovely miniature range.

Then I have read that Battlefront did the same with the rules with V4, and have to say that makes a whole lot less sense. It does smack of releasing new rules for the sake of new rules. GW can get away with it because only they do 40k, Battlefront less so as historical players can quite easily jump ship to Battlegroup or any other WW2 historical setting that you care to mention.

The issues I've heard have less to do with the pace of the game, aka how fast units are destroyed and kill, and more to do with massive parking lots of BMP's and cheap tanks, an overall emphasis on numbers over quality, and some really bizarre nigh unkillable infantry unit.

Essentially the game appears to reward absolutely bizarre army builds and most of the places that I used to follow Flames of War on certain forums seem to have died off dramatically, with a lot of talk of it being a dying game and that Battlefront has shot itself in the foot. I've even heard Plastic Soldier Company's sales have fallen off a cliff, which is not a good sign, as his 15mm line was a main source of models for people building Flames of War armies.

My little bit of South London I would say Xwing is popular, but my sense is it is dropping off as 'Wave fatigue' hits - the game is simply too complicated now with too many mechanics hitting and people starting to get fed up. As a mate who gave up on the game put it 'why would I play a game called xwing when the Xwing cannot win'?

Bolt Action - reasonably popular.

FOW - dead dead dead. BF screwed up with 4th edition - I sold my stuff of ages ago and won't be going back. Its now 50% off in my FLGS to clear it out.

WMH - not seen in ages.

Saga - I love it, few others do.

Mantic - never seen played. Their reputation precedes them and I've spoken to FLGS owners who have strong views on their approach - they see no point in stocking a line which will be undercut by kickstarter.

jim30 wrote:
My little bit of South London I would say Xwing is popular, but my sense is it is dropping off as 'Wave fatigue' hits - the game is simply too complicated now with too many mechanics hitting and people starting to get fed up. As a mate who gave up on the game put it 'why would I play a game called xwing when the Xwing cannot win'?

that pretty much my clubs reaction to X-Wing, I had a fun game this week but both of the lists were at least 3 waves 'behind'

Locally GB is catching on a bit, WMH has its handful of acolytes, MTG seems to have a bit of play (EDH mostly), assorted boardgames, and virtually no GW

My local infinity scene is doing quite well. It's growing at a steady rate, rather than the fits and starts that the big-boy-in-the-yard has (People play, rules change, then they stop, then they go back 2 editions later, then stop, rinse and repeat). A slow but steady rate. The fact that most of the players HAVE enough suitable terrain after being in the hobby for years helps.

It's not as popular as the local variety of 40k where GI-Joe toys battle it out on planet bowling-ball, but that's fine by me.
The game I play doesn't have to be "all things to all people".

I went over to board games and never looked back. For the price of a GW unit I can buy an entire game. Or not spend a dime. It is a hobby where others buy a game and I just play their copy with no need to buy anything of my own. Plenty of board games have miniatures I can paint too.

It is interesting reading other peoples thoughts on X-Wing (its my main game), thankfully the local gaming scene is very chilled out and if you want to proxy stuff no one cares (so no card chasing) although I do play in all the tournaments where actual cards are required but have yet to find it an issue borrowing or buying single cards. I don't know if its because I stick to a single faction or not but I haven't felt any hardship in getting two to three ships a year.

Next month though I am playing in a campaign for Babylon 5 A Call to Arms which ceased to be supported in 09(?) and am really looking forward to it, between 4 and 6 players are joining in so it should be a blast.

It's not about owning all the cards, for me (they're all on the internet, after all). It's about understanding them. There's too many different cards and combinations available for me to get a grip on what's good.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
It's not about owning all the cards, for me (they're all on the internet, after all). It's about understanding them. There's too many different cards and combinations available for me to get a grip on what's good.

yep, I think this is the feeling at my club, X-Wing is a good game and I've had a lot of fun playing it, heck I've even travelled for events which for a homebody hobbit like me is very much an exception, I'm sure I'll carry on getting the odd game in but I'm done with keeping up and competitive play (well till 2.0 )

 ingtaer wrote:
Next month though I am playing in a campaign for Babylon 5 A Call to Arms which ceased to be supported in 09(?) and am really looking forward to it, between 4 and 6 players are joining in so it should be a blast.

A Call to Arms is a fun game - what are you playing -2nd edition? There are some bad match ups - Earth Alliance against Minbari for example but we have had many great games.....

EA vs Minbari is supposed to be a bad matchup - the series is based on that fact. Mind you, I still fondly remember the time I managed to slot my Omega nicely between two Sharlin warcruisers and got to fire the fore and aft heavy lasers simultaneously.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
EA vs Minbari is supposed to be a bad matchup - the series is based on that fact. Mind you, I still fondly remember the time I managed to slot my Omega nicely between two Sharlin warcruisers and got to fire the fore and aft heavy lasers simultaneously.

I'll be playing Infinity 3rd edition for the first time since the first Beasts of War campaign event ended this Saturday. I expect to get thrashed, as I've not kept up with the rules changes and additions since then (I own Human Sphere N3, but the hacking rules are still a mystery to me, since my hacker models aren't painted so I've never had reason to read those rules).

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
It's not about owning all the cards, for me (they're all on the internet, after all). It's about understanding them. There's too many different cards and combinations available for me to get a grip on what's good.

Very much my feeling too - there are just too many cards now, and too many complex timing interactions to keep on top of. There is also a relentless power creep, with each new wave dialling it up to 11, so when you see things like Harpoon missiles, which seem to be causing a lot of confusion and damage, I'm personally at the point of going 'thanks, but no thanks'.

X-Wing - Ah, that I get. Yeah its pretty impossible to keep on top of everything card and combination wise but I have found if you keep on top of your own stuff its enough to enable you to compete. Generally I just have a look at the oppos stuff before the game and try to adapt, have been thrown some nasty curve balls, especially with rebel stuff, but given a couple of minutes to figure stuff out (or get hit on the head with) I haven't found it too bad. Power creep wise, yeah definitely in tourneys it can be rough but people tend to be a little sheep like...

ACTA- We are playing 2.0 with Burgers beams and the ship balances from P&P but cutting out the extra ships R&R. I am torn on the fleet the other players are playing Narn, Centauri, EA Third and I am thinking of ISA or Vorlon (the two maybe players are Shadows and Gaim). I prefer ISA because I love Whitestars and have twenty available along with 2 Tara'lins and requisite fighters but Vorlons really put the fear in the enemy.
There are some nasty match ups either way but thinking that ISA is just too much fun, for a 10pt Battle campaign thinking of two Tara'lin, eight whitestar 1 and four whitestar two. Thankfully every fleet is pretty fluffy however the thought of facing a few full squadrons of Demos/Vorchan/Maximus is pretty scary.

Edited so the numbers actually add up...

My collections is basically one of everything that was on the telly (that I managed to get, anyway - missing some freighters, LoNAW ships and the other Narn cruiser); that basically means the only fleet I can field is EA (Warlock, Omega, Hyperion and Nova and lots of fighters) or Vorlons (because one ship is a fleet).

I enjoyed the game, but the only other people interested in Babylon 5 gaming were fans of the Babylon 5 Wars game, which I can't stand.

Since 8th our gaming group has played more 40k and reduced the number of other games we play.

Cheers,

CB

The only GW game that get any regular play at my club is Blood Bowl. Otherwise it's KoW, Chain of Command, Flames, and various Ancient rule systems (SAGA, Swordpoint, Nap's Battles). There's also board games like the new Conan or older games like Civilisations and Robo Rally.

I think I saw 40k get played once this year.

 ingtaer wrote:
ACTA- We are playing 2.0 with Burgers beams and the ship balances from P&P but cutting out the extra ships R&R. I am torn on the fleet the other players are playing Narn, Centauri, EA Third and I am thinking of ISA or Vorlon (the two maybe players are Shadows and Gaim). I prefer ISA because I love Whitestars and have twenty available along with 2 Tara'lins and requisite fighters but Vorlons really put the fear in the enemy.
There are some nasty match ups either way but thinking that ISA is just too much fun, for a 10pt Battle campaign thinking of two Tara'lin, four whitestar 1 and Two whitestar two. Thankfully every fleet is pretty fluffy however the thought of facing a few full squadrons of Demos/Vorchan/Maximus is pretty scary.

Ah cool - brings back good memories. Twenty White Stars is impressive - although I do have 3 Victories! - alhough one is converted to shadowtech for my "mirror universe" stuff. Centauri/Shadows player by preference

Demos is a mighty ship - although I loved my 1st ed Maximus

I am stunned, simply stunned that someone whos handle is Mr Morden and has the cover of Darkness Rising as his avatar would be a Shadows player...

Have you played recently? Three Vics is a lot of Vics! Would love to see your converted one if you have pics.

Munchkin seems to be gaining ground here while X-Wing is stagnating.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Mind you, I still fondly remember the time I managed to slot my Omega nicely between two Sharlin warcruisers and got to fire the fore and aft heavy lasers simultaneously.

I'll thank you to remember this is a family-friendly forum, mister!

I play FOW and 40K. Team Yankee is doing OK, but FOW 4th Ed has not gone over well. Some of it may have just been fatigue at reaching the end of the war, so to speak, but I think that the re-launch was fumbled from a design perspective. Their MW re-launch seemed focused around what plastics they could produce and avoiding PSC eating their lunch. The result was very thin lists that turned people off. I enjoy V4, but it is struggling. Sad.

jim30 wrote:
Mantic - never seen played. Their reputation precedes them and I've spoken to FLGS owners who have strong views on their approach - they see no point in stocking a line which will be undercut by kickstarter.

A bit of a self fulfilling prophecy there - if they do not stock the games, they cannot sell the games, which makes the game company rely more on Kickstarter... rinse and repeat as the local game stores continue to go out of business.

Not just Mantic - we used to have a LGS that would not stock any company that had used Kickstarter. (Mantic, Reaper, CMoN, and a few others.)

The companies are still around, the store has been gone for four years. (The banning of Kickstarter products was a symptom, not the disease. There were several reasons why the store went belly up.)

The best way to guarantee that a game or line will make no money for your store is not to sell it. Whether it is Zombicide, Walking Dead, or Bones. (The less than local game store does stock CMoN, Mantic, and Reaper - and is thinking about opening a second store - turns out that the Friendly part of FLGS is important.)

Kickstarter is part of the retail and financing landscape now - stores need to learn to deal with it, or they will go out of business. Direct order is likewise a part of the landscape - refusing to carry product is a Pyrrhic victory at best, and a suicide pact more often than they think.

****

Ran my Kids of War last night - and did the scenario I mentioned above - cutting it down to 1,000 points for each of the two kids (for a total of 2,000) vs.my 1,750 of undead...

My mission was to hold both ends of a bridge - and the kids units with Vanguard could deploy on the second turn - on my side of the river.

I... got clobbered! The kids did a much better job of coordinating against me than they had ever done against each other!

Technically, the second game was a draw - but only my sole remaining unit was parked right on the bridge when the game ended....

Goblins and Orcs - heavy hitting Chariots and some nasty wolf mounted archers.

They managed to get behind my line, leaving my sole survivor on their end of the bridge.

Game ended with Turn 6 - but I suspect that the Revenants could have held on for another turn - being on the bridge meant no flankers could reach them.

The first game left me with a classic problem of cavalry - my Revenant Cavalry had gone far past the enemy line, so had to waste two turns getting back into the fray. (Their accompanying Necromancer became a pin cussion, and was then charged by a pegasus riding hero. *Splat!* )

I did manage to wipe out Sam's Forces of Nature - but it cost me too much doing so.

Brotherhood did a very good job of recovering, after their ally was routed. Got some small cav units in place to prevent my Revenants from getting back to the front, and used Pathfinder to good effect when they charged my big block of Revenant infantry. (Thunderous charge, on a flank... Ow.) Which also prevented the big unit of Zombies from getting to the bridge. (Too big to fit on the bridge - a Horde of zeds eats up a lot of space!)

So, I had more units left, and did more damage - but was nowhere near the objectives that I needed to win - and held neither end of the bridge when Turn 7 came up.

So, I am calling both games losses.

The Auld Grump

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
I play FOW and 40K. Team Yankee is doing OK, but FOW 4th Ed has not gone over well. Some of it may have just been fatigue at reaching the end of the war, so to speak, but I think that the re-launch was fumbled from a design perspective. Their MW re-launch seemed focused around what plastics they could produce and avoiding PSC eating their lunch. The result was very thin lists that turned people off. I enjoy V4, but it is struggling. Sad.

It does smack of a poor business decision with 4th edition doesn't it. Change for the sake of change and selling new books and kits, rather than because a genuine change was needed.

What was notable about FoW when it first launched was that they managed to touch the pulse of what a lot of casual or GW only wargames wanted at that time. Straightforward rules, all of the miniatures you needed in the box, it was all so accessible and I think they got hold of a lot of older teenage GW players that were after something a bit more 'adult', and historical fans too.

So I wonder why they didn't think of doing something similar with a different period of history? Roman Punic Wars, the hundred year war, ACW. Sets of quality plastic minis, a solid rulesets with campaign books etc. There is so much opportunity there, and it could have been launched with their full marketing and company weight behind it. I'm sure something like that would have had a great opportunity for success

 Pacific wrote:
It does smack of a poor business decision with 4th edition doesn't it. Change for the sake of change and selling new books and kits, rather than because a genuine change was needed.

What was notable about FoW when it first launched was that they managed to touch the pulse of what a lot of casual or GW only wargames wanted at that time. Straightforward rules, all of the miniatures you needed in the box, it was all so accessible and I think they got hold of a lot of older teenage GW players that were after something a bit more 'adult', and historical fans too.

So I wonder why they didn't think of doing something similar with a different period of history? Roman Punic Wars, the hundred year war, ACW. Sets of quality plastic minis, a solid rulesets with campaign books etc. There is so much opportunity there, and it could have been launched with their full marketing and company weight behind it. I'm sure something like that would have had a great opportunity for success

I don't think they were wrong that the time was right for a new edition and I do think that some of the FoW rules needed to overhauled. They just went about it in the wrong way, the MW reboot in particular I can't see how they couldn't have known it would upset players.

As for moving into another period, there is a lot amount of competition in some of those periods. All of them have plastics in 28mm, all of them have lots of 15mm metal manufacturers and all of them have a variety of good rules. For example ancients has the following good rulesets that I can recall offhand: Hail Caesar, Too the Strongest, DBA3.0, L'Art de la Guerre, Swordpoint, Mortem et Gloriam, DBMM, Fields of Glory, Impetus. There doesn't seem to be the gap that existed in WW2 back when they started and that existed for WW3 when TY came out.

 ingtaer wrote:
I am stunned, simply stunned that someone whos handle is Mr Morden and has the cover of Darkness Rising as his avatar would be a Shadows player...

Have you played recently? Three Vics is a lot of Vics! Would love to see your converted one if you have pics.

One of them is in Darkness Rising



Sadly not had a game for a year of more - i did try and start up a 3rd ed group at our local club but no one was that interested - too few people and too many games to play. I did do some conversion rules for Dropfleet



but that game died pretty quickly here as well.

 durecellrabbit wrote:

 Pacific wrote:


What was notable about FoW when it first launched was that they managed to touch the pulse of what a lot of casual or GW only wargames wanted at that time. Straightforward rules, all of the miniatures you needed in the box, it was all so accessible and I think they got hold of a lot of older teenage GW players that were after something a bit more 'adult', and historical fans too.

So I wonder why they didn't think of doing something similar with a different period of history? Roman Punic Wars, the hundred year war, ACW. Sets of quality plastic minis, a solid rulesets with campaign books etc. There is so much opportunity there, and it could have been launched with their full marketing and company weight behind it. I'm sure something like that would have had a great opportunity for success

As for moving into another period, there is a lot amount of competition in some of those periods. All of them have plastics in 28mm, all of them have lots of 15mm metal manufacturers and all of them have a variety of good rules. For example ancients has the following good rulesets that I can recall offhand: Hail Caesar, Too the Strongest, DBA3.0, L'Art de la Guerre, Swordpoint, Mortem et Gloriam, DBMM, Fields of Glory, Impetus. There doesn't seem to be the gap that existed in WW2 back when they started and that existed for WW3 when TY came out.

There was a hell of a lot of WW2 stuff about when FoW appeared. What FoW did was bring in a well marketed product, with well defined parameters, and game that was designed to appeal to GW gamers - not something where you have to provide your own bases or print off a rule supplement that had been published in Wargames Miniature monthly back in 1996 (to be a bit extreme )

I've mentioned the army boxes, the set campaign books, that tell you exactly what to buy, even themed paint sets so you don't need to do research outside of the rulebook. There aren't many historical games (apart from perhaps SAGA, maybe Hail Caesar and Warlord equivalents?) that offer the kind of 'package' to the inexperienced wargamer, who doesn't want to go outside of the all in one sets that the Battlefront (and GW games) provides.

I think there was plenty of room for some quality Roman-era plastics at 15mm ( you wouldnt even need to expand to other ancients periods), backed by Battlefronts marketing muscle and the fact it would get a couple of metres of display space at the FLGS. I certainly don't think it would have done any more harm than v4 of FoW, which seems to have gone down like a lead balloon.

But I guess this is all conjecture (although Battlefront isn't entirely risk averse as they went ahead with Team Yankee.. So who knows in future?)