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I'm getting flashbacks to Games Day where this one guy's Ogre Kingdom's army was painted like Smurfs (complete with the hats) and all the Gnoblars were converted & painted to be Snorks. I usually enjoy seeing themed armies but that one was really immersion breaking fir me, proving I guess I do have limits.

I try very hard to be a "if it makes them happy then I'm cool with it" guy, but when things stray into the silly, I would have to take a moment to realign my expectations!

Case in point, the above post about ogres painted & modelled like smurfs. Similarly when I've seen people making hello kitty marines, or magic girl/ sailor moon orks.

I'll definitely admire the effort, and I won't refuse the game against someone, but I will need a moment to realign myself so that I can have fun with the absurdity of it instead of forming a narrative of an awesome, gritty battle.

I myself have an army of Rebel Grots as Imperial Guard (with minimal conversions thus far, because I have so many orky models, I would rather it be notably guard with "oh, they're grots!" than look like orks but "actually, they're guard"), and have an unfinished tyranid project for mechanical nids which I really, really want to get back to working on, so I'm no stranger to army-wide proxies. The idea of an imperial guard army themed around GI Joe would be extremely cool!

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Haha, myself I've grown weary of these mishmash non-settings that have everything, so nothing means anything.

Maybe it made sense 30 years ago so you could play your only handful of miniatures against your buddy's only handful of miniatures.

Today we have casual access to a glut of models for every possible genre, so why would I play a game with no identity.

I see this as well. In the 00's there was a trend for these type of "all-in-one" systems. This was so you could have Imperial Stormtroopers face-off against Darleks. The idea was to bring and play with what you got. These have fallen off in popularity.

The next trend in the 10's-Teens seemed to be "Campaign-Focused" games.(solo and Coo-op too) where the energy went into building a Campaign/story-mode that focused on the post-game and inter-game connectivity and actions with a lighter-focus on gameplay on the tabletop. These tended to focus a bit more on setting to keep the campaign consistent with the proper feel.

Now in the 20's, the trend seems to be more "Vibes-based" By that I mean that the games go heavy on setting, feel, and modelling but are still light on mechanics. Smaller numbers of models and tighter gameplay spaces seems to also be a sub-category here.

Of course, we can quibble over the times and the specifics but that is some of the design window changes I have seen. The desire to cross-genre game seems to be reduced from the turn of the millenia.

 Easy E wrote:


The next trend in the 10's-Teens seemed to be "Campaign-Focused" games.(solo and Coo-op too) where the energy went into building a Campaign/story-mode that focused on the post-game and inter-game connectivity and actions with a lighter-focus on gameplay on the tabletop. These tended to focus a bit more on setting to keep the campaign consistent with the proper feel....

....Now in the 20's, the trend seems to be more "Vibes-based" By that I mean that the games go heavy on setting, feel, and modelling but are still light on mechanics. Smaller numbers of models and tighter gameplay spaces seems to also be a sub-category here.

I like both of these approaches.

It's great to have a campaign where it all fits together. We've done a number of these. Both our own settings where we can flex to incorporate a variety of factions and in fairly well-defined and limited settings such as Mordhiem and Necro 95.

On the other hand I also love "Vibes Based" where the setting, rules and minis work together and detailed mechanics are not the emphasis. This is pretty much how I approach the One-Page Rules games I play. I use them for alot of things and theoretically I could cross genres. However, I really want the "vibe", so most often I use the rules to play in specific settings, only/mostly using appropriate minis for that setting. I've done this with: 40k, Star Wars, Weird World War 2, WHFB'ish fantasy combat, etc.

It's funny because the initial design brief for 40k was apparently "write a scifi wargame that can utilise any miniature with a gun GW then sold"
Which includes Daleks and stuff as they were producing Doctor Who miniatures at the time.

Of course 40k managed it with a very impressive background structure that was simultaneously extremely unique and rich whilst being absolutely open to nearly anything.
Through xenos, psykers, and feudal worlds basically any model even from Warhammer Fantasy could feasibly make its way to a 40k battlefield

 PondaNagura wrote:
I remember those games, I could see that working in 40k.
Some of the tanks felt like they used the same inspiration that the GW teams were using at the time, if not 40k itself.
If you're already doing 3D you could do an imperial guard version then orkify it later?

thanks for the information!

Really, 40k started as cross-genre wargaming and to an extent it still is.

It combined it's own take on future-ized classic fantasy races with the ALIEN marines and xenomorphs, AD2000 Judge Dredd, Terminator, Anime stompy robots, and many more

Over time it has taken all those and made them it's own, but 40k is an incredible crossing of genres.