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Ever looked around your gaming area, across unplayed RPGs and unbuilt models and said, "Why the did I buy that? What was I thinking?"

Yes

Mine is Robotech RPG Tactics and I waited for retail to get it!

Currently: The Marvel Universe RPG and Kang Expansion to go with all the other RPGs I'll never play.

Of all Time: The Forgeworld Lightning Fighter. I bought it, attempted to build it, learned all about resin dust from the ER physician, payed someone to build it for me, painted it, and never played with it. Still don't know what happened to the model... I lost it with all my other 40k stuff years ago.

Hopefully my Trajann Valoris will eventually be used, so he's not a regret.... yet.

I bought and funded the taverns kickstarter jocat and some other YouTubers had, the stuff I got is good quality but I forgot all my friends are a bunch of murderhobos who only care about numbers and stats, no rp, so it’s impossible to get a session together. One day I might be able to run or be in a campaign but right now it sure is sitting there unused.

 The_Pilot wrote:
I bought and funded the taverns kickstarter jocat and some other YouTubers had, the stuff I got is good quality but I forgot all my friends are a bunch of murderhobos who only care about numbers and stats, no rp, so it’s impossible to get a session together. One day I might be able to run or be in a campaign but right now it sure is sitting there unused.

Yeah. I feel your pain. I tried running a Star Trek Adventures campaign where my players murdered everything that moved and looted the Romulans "for better gear."

::Sigh::

I bought the new Heroquest and a bunch of the expansions and they're still unopened... (at least they were on sale)

I spent over 200€ for 10 (yes, ten!) resin HH MKV style jump packs on ebay.. only to learn that plastic versions of that same exact flocking jump pack are coming when the MKII Assault Squad plastic kit arrives later this year

Saddest thing is, I might not even end up using them if the plastic versions turn out to be superior in some way..

Second place goes for splurging close to a hundred euros on AK Interactive's Extreme Metal paints.. just to learn I dont have the modelling chops to use em properly Woulda been better off buying their buffable metal wax paints instead..

Oh, so many.

Mostly down to not having the time to use it all, rather than lack of quality.

For example all-in on the Mars Attacks kickstarter from Mantic, played one evening

Same for Star Saga

Backed Deadzone 2nd edition - had a looot of fun with the 1st - but then we never played again.

More armies across all systems than I could ever even build

3rd party models to use as proxies... for units that got official models before I got around to building the proxies

Battletech Mercs Kickstarter. The time between the campaign and delivery, particularly including CGL making a pigs ear of the whole process really killed the vibe for me.

It’s not too bad as I didn’t go too mental, but I have about 100 mechs and vees that may never see board nor paint.

I also picked up a bunch of the novels on humblebundle, and find myself with no desire to explore the lore either.

The main cause of purchase regrets is buying things for their future potential. I buy things but by the time I get to building and painting them, reality has changed either the rules or the community or my own interests and I just don't really get to use them as I'd envisioned.

A big reason I tried to get my pile of shame clear is just so I can quickly go from new purchase to painted and on the table. The only real way to accomplish that is to not buy things until they're the next thing I want, which is definitely not easy, but a change I've been pretty happy with and mostly worked out for me.

I guess I sort of regret buying into the Deadzone and Warpath Kickstarters a few years back. I did use some of the terrain sprues, but I never played a single game and the "Rebs" are still sitting in a bag in the hope that someday they'll get painted up for Star Wars. There's certainly little actual value in them.

Really though, there's not much I've bought that I regret. I try to buy everything at a deep discount so that if I end up selling I come out ahead (usually) or at least break even. I've bought and sold quite a few armies-worth (LoTR Orcs and Gondor, Kryomek, English Medieval, Spacelords, etc...) of figures that never got a bit of paint on them, but they were all flipped well, so no regrets.

Especially with older stuff, even if a project never comes to fruition, sometimes it is just nice to have the figures for a bit to admire the artistry and learn about another obscure figure line before sending them on to their new home.

My most consistent regret is completionism purchases. Far too many times I have an army I love and I pick up a new release for it just to have the option to play it even if I don't really have a reason to. Taking the time to decide what doesn't get played to make time to play the new thing has been a great way to avoid picking up new things simply because they're new.

I've got a few project that I never got around but they end up a disappointment rather than a regret. It's once I get the army painted and it doesn't work that it becomes a regret.

My Gates of Antares has been my biggest regret and I've complained about it a few times online.

I was reluctant to get into it in the first place and then some of the most enthusiastic players never ended up building their armies. Leaving just me and one other player. Our armies turned out to be a terrible match up and it just wasn't fun. Not only did I spend ages painting the army but mine was one of the expensive metal ones as well.

Hmmm. I usually don't regret stuff I buy because I only buy miniatures I like...with one exception! I wanted to get some elf cavalry a while ago and picked up the mantic elf cavalry. Then North Star released their elf cavalry soon after I'd done that and the mantic models looked really bad in person.

I kinda regret buying loads of descent 2e but at least I have gotten a lot of use out of the minis for RPGs.

Two - both from Kickstarter.

Sedition Wars, which had such promise, and delivered so very badly on around half of what it tried to do.

and Super Dungeon Explore, the biggest KS failure I've backed... I think the only other project I've backed that never actually delivered was a deck of cards. I had wanted SDE to play with my kids, but it never actually happened, and then the updated heroquest happened instead.

The D&D edition that had all the cards. 4th?

Terrible, and no resale value. As the Brits would say, "I binned it."

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
The D&D edition that had all the cards. 4th?

Terrible, and no resale value. As the Brits would say, "I binned it."

It's actually a pretty nice system.
It doesn't feel like D&D to a lot of folk, but for a small-scale party skirmish game? It's great. Best combat of any D&D edition I've played.

 insaniak wrote:

and Super Dungeon Explore, the biggest KS failure I've backed... I think the only other project I've backed that never actually delivered was a deck of cards. I had wanted SDE to play with my kids, but it never actually happened, and then the updated heroquest happened instead.

I'd largely given up on KS. Didn't back SDE 2.0 and regretted it. Backed SDE Legends and REALLY regretted it. Gave up on KS. Got talked into Rivenstone and MonPoc and let me tell you...

KS has largely been positive for me, but I've mostly stuck to small projects. Sedition Wars was disappointing, but at least delivered.

Only other major problem was a KS for some small retro boxed boardgames... I backed for two games, and received one of them. The other, they sent me an empty box four times before I gave up and asked for my money back.

My full 6x4 (+extras) Secret Weapon Tablescape board.
I wouldn't say it's a purchase I regret as such, but I look at it occasionally and do a little internal sigh and wish I'd had an actual chance to use it in the..... 11years(?) I've had it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:
Two - both from Kickstarter.

My biggest bullet dodged was the Darkest Dungeon KS. I love the computer game like you wouldn't believe, and I was super keen for a tabletop version of it. I didn't end up jumping in on it because of the price of getting absolutely everything on offer was going to cap out at like $700+ and I just couldn't justify it to myself.
I don't even remember now what issues the campaign had now, but I know I'm glad I avoided it.

Blackstone Fortress... built half of it, never played it. Lost enthusiasm the more I learned about the game.

One game I do regret selling off on ebay was Space Hulk. Don't think i'd feel the same way selling off Blackstone Fortress.

 Easy E wrote:
Mine is Robotech RPG Tactics and I waited for retail to get it!

I second this, when I was backing it, several friends reminded me of their past issues. But just like an abused ex-wife, I convinced myself they would be different this time with a new start
and a major Kickstarter plus the game was almost complete during the campaign with another designer doing it. Just feel sorry for the current TMNT RPG backers.

I do have a pile like most people but don't feel bad because if it collects too much dust, I either trade or sell it off.

This topic could go the other direction by seeing something online or in a shop and passing on it. Then immediately regretted it.
My last one was a dodged bullet, when the kill team Blood and Zeal hit, I thought I would just wait for the second wave with separate units. I am glad I grabbed it when I did.

 Thargrim wrote:
Blackstone Fortress... built half of it, never played it. Lost enthusiasm the more I learned about the game.

One game I do regret selling off on ebay was Space Hulk. Don't think i'd feel the same way selling off Blackstone Fortress.

I felt that. I bought Blackstone Fortress when it was new because I loved the models and thought the game was good. I have yet to actually play the game (although I have painted some of the models), and it's been like 6-7 years.

Another game I regret buying was Star Saga. Kind of like BSF above, except by Mantic and set in their Warpath universe. I even picked up a minion booster so I'd have more mook models for the game. I've barely touched it and certainly haven't painted any of it. Of course, one thing about it that took the wind out of my sails is that a lot of the models were badly warped, and the hot water trick everyone swears by just has never worked for me, on these or any other models.

I've had some regret with some of my 40k purchases, although the main one I regret was my Custodes. I did sell them and get a little bit of my money back, but I never even played a single game with them, nor did I paint a single one of the models. Another army kind of like that was my Space Wolves, but at least I painted a few of those and I did play a few games with them, so much less regret there.

 Thargrim wrote:
Blackstone Fortress... built half of it, never played it. Lost enthusiasm the more I learned about the game.

One game I do regret selling off on ebay was Space Hulk. Don't think i'd feel the same way selling off Blackstone Fortress.

If you still have it, I can recommend giving it a go. Its fun

Also with the 2D boards, setup is pretty quick.

Tricky one - hard to mention anything without mentioning, well, everything...

I suppose the Mantic kickstarter I funded (Dungeon Saga) as a birthday present for my brother. Think he played it once.

For me, probably the Mantic Dungeon Saga kickstarter. I went in big on that one, as the KS campaign promised a Heroquest-like base game and a WHQ95-like advanced game with the add-on book.

Then, during production Jake Thornton posted on his blog that he didn't like the concept of WHQ. Something about, if you're going to play a RPG-like, just play an RPG or some nonsense. What we ended up with was another early-Mantic Jake Thornton Alpha-release quality game: Jake Thornton's Heroquest for Jake Thornton; and the add-on book was so unplayable with typos and outright unworkable rules, Mantic had to ship out a replacement version for free.

Other Mantic Kickstarters merely left me with games few people would play with me and large armies of figures that I can now print better replacements for. Dungeon Saga outright failed to deliver what I thought was being offered. At least the dungeon tiles were non-standard shapes, so they don't duplicate something I already had...

My first Kickstarter - Drake a dragon wargame which just upped and died. Spent way too much on that only to get half of a partial delivery of the first wave of models and even those were a mishmash of decent to terrible casting (one had massive join marks from the mould all over it).

One day I'll clean up the good ones and get them finished up - till then they'll continue resting in their box.



That's the only one I can say I "REALLY" regret that I bought into.

Another dissatisfied KS backer!

Cryptozoic Game's Walking Dead. Worst miniatures ever, and the other components were "meh". Had a big discussion that some thought these were "boardgame miniatures" while the rest thought it was trash. Look, if something actually was XYZ, you wouldn't have an argument about it, would you??

Unfortunately, I would not yet learn my lesson to not back a KS/GF that solely relied on crowdfunding (and "investors") for funding. Ironically, to decrease the risk of a project, you want to look for companies that have an "evergreen" retail revenue stream. Also unfortunately that would not have kept you from backing Cephalofair, who's now a year behind and laying off staff because of tariffs. (Notice how poorly managed companies are closing down because of tariffs while others are absorbing or partially absorbind costs.) Ummm... maybe you shouldn't have ran a crowdfunding project for FOUR projects at the same time???

I've definitely had some Kickstarter successes, but the reality is even in the best cases the hype delay generally keeps things from reaching their full potential.