Weekender XLBS: Diving Into 40k & Too Many Skirmish Games?
March 8, 2015 by warzan
For some website features, you will need a FREE account and for some others, you will need to join the Cult of Games.
Or if you have already joined the Cult of Games Log in now
What difference will having a FREE account make?
Setting up a Free account with OnTableTop unlocks a load of additional features and content (see below). You can then get involved with our Tabletop Gaming community, we are very helpful and keen to hear what you have to say. So Join Us Now!
Free Account Includes
- Creating your own project blogs.
- Rating and reviewing games using our innovative system.
- Commenting and ability to upvote.
- Posting in the forums.
- Unlocking of Achivments and collectin hobby xp
- Ability to add places like clubs and stores to our gaming database.
- Follow games, recommend games, use wishlist and mark what games you own.
- You will be able to add friends to your account.
What's the Cult of Games?
Once you have made a free account you can support the community by joing the Cult of Games. Joining the Cult allows you to use even more parts of the site and access to extra content. Check out some of the extra features below.
Cult of Games Membership Includes
- Reduced ads, for a better browsing experience (feature can be turned on or off in your profile).
- Access to The Cult of Games XLBS Sunday Show.
- Extra hobby videos about painting, terrain building etc.
- Exclusive interviews with the best game designers etc.
- Behind the scenes studio VLogs.
- Access to our live stream archives.
- Early access to our event tickets.
- Access to the CoG Greenroom.
- Access to the CoG Chamber of Commerce.
- Access the CoG Bazarr Trading Forum.
- Create and Edit Records for Games, Companies and Professionals.
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
happy sunday 🙂
Happy Sunday!
wrath of kings wolves aka confrontation?
Yep. Given I will be painting up my Wolfen army for Confrontation in a few months time (once I move country) these are very very Rackham in style.
Happy Sunday!
Happy sunday backstagers!
There was apparently an ad announcing the forthcoming release of those Citadel Combat Cards in WD 108, so that would’ve been 1988.
Happy Sunday, wow, got two of my meme’s stuck in on one show 😉
Christ. Every card of that Space Marine Combat Cards deck Justin pulled it was like “had that, had that, lord I feel old…”
Fear not Owen! Those brightly coloured shirts of yours fool us all 😉
Haha, I feel your pain brother! I actually paused the video part way and dug around for my own hair-metal noise marine! He’s sitting on my painting table now and will be recieving a paint stripping and a new coat of leopard print in the next couple of weeks 🙂
The deeper bases are based on the CMoN/MicroArts KS base inserts. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coolminiornot/coolminiornot-base-system-featuring-micro-art-stud
These are also fantastic for other basing effects…
Ah yes – the $25 shipping for my $22 pledge system that thankfully refunded my pledge. Beware Shipping added afterwards projects.
I believe I am currently one that has more games then I have time to play. I do find myself looking back at mass battle games, because of the sweeping landscape of troops. I love my skirmish games, but my heart will always truly belong large armies.
Amen about the big games, @stvitusdancern . If there aren’t at least 200 people on the table (represented one way or another), it almost doesn’t feel like a game. 😀
I agree on the point of not trying to do everything perfectly. Currently I’m running 11 wargaming projects all which are moving slowly but steadily forward because I choose to do certain projects in a quick and efficient way whereas I do others with alot of attention to detail. That way I get fun from gaming with painted mini’s and fun from having done a difficult, detailed paintjob. I guess it’s all a matter of organisation 🙂
the games workshop combat cards are on page157 of the blue citadel miniatures catalogue ( my copy is dated 1991)……six sets ….chaos….monsters…..warriors…..goblinoids……dwarfs….spacemarines …….hope this helps
Any Company running a kickstarter that has based its needed funding target purely for the game/product and is expecting over funding to go towards other back projects will go under purely on bad management not to any degree of a crash or over saturation. A Kickstarter is exactly that a Kick Start for beginnings, as for the Coolminiornot comment, this is the reason GW doesn’t go to kickstarter, the returns for the kickstarter probably wouldn’t be worth it when taking long term goals and practices into consideration. There will be a time that certain companies will become too big for… Read more »
Sorry couldn’t disagree more, I don’t think there is such a thing as too big for kickstarter. GW don’t do it because they are already established, they could if they really wanted to. Change for GW comes at a glacial pace. The danger as Warren points out is that if the projects only simply fund there is nothing in the pot for building the infrastructure to support and expand these projects further. These games become less about the hobby and more about entertainment for a couple of weekends and then on to something else entirely. The hobbyists would be slowly… Read more »
I think GW could certainly crowdfund and probably get a lot out of it, but they don’t need KS to do it. They could just run it themselves and not pay KS and Amazon 8% of what they raise nor have to abide by their regulations.
@devious76
Quote
“GW don’t do it because they are already established, they could if they really wanted to. Change for GW comes at a glacial pace”
Thats what I said
“There will be a time that certain companies will become too big for a Kickstarter, Coolminiornot and other companies will need to make up their own mind if they fit into this category”
It will be up to the Company themselves to decided if its too big (AKA established) for Kickstarter.
I could give a very long reply to this video but I doubt anyone comes to the comments section to read walloftext so I’ll restrict myself to saying that as of Q4 2014, ICv2 puts three of the top five selling North American minis games as X-Wing, Star Trek Attack Wing, and D&D Attack Wing. The three games which have been displaced from the top five over the last couple of years to make way for them have been Warhammer Fantasy, Hordes, and Malifaux. We might already be at the end of the era of the skirmish game and at… Read more »
Great Post, good insight into the trends in todays market. I also think that the many players who enjoy the repainted will inevitable include a smaller subset who will get bored of the pre paint format and get pulled into the broader hobby.
Mmm – I helped run a TT demo day at my FLGS who’s stepping up from mail-order startup. GW ius literally 2 mins walk away and at the moment his main audience are GWers looking for a bit of discount and the off-the-shelf gamer/collectors of Magic they Gathering and… X-Wing. These two systems provide the ‘crack’ users that keeps on wanting for him. The day was slow and several of his regular crack customers stopped by, intrigued by the nicely painted minis etc ( mostly the Warcor’s) but as soon as they saw the raw metal bagged up product were… Read more »
Happy sunday!
You nailed it down once again @redben 🙂 I’ve seen and was in the first Wizkids clicks games wave. The big thing with X-Wing is it’s massive and popular ip. Everybody knows Star Wars. Fantasy Flight just made a brilliant decision to combine tree factors – a already very good game, cool models and a setting known by almost everyone.
Another great Sunday! Thanks for brightening up my weekends guys. Really enjoyed the musing on the direction off the industry and it raised a couple of issues for me. We see a challenge to the established companies as reflected in GW having to finally respond to changes in market expectations. However, as Warren mentions, GW as a large corporate is driven by the accountants and so the change isn’t necessarily one based upon gaming innovation and as such might not reverse the decline in sales for Warhammer Fantasy. When markets move to saturation there inevitable results a drive towards the… Read more »
Happy Sunday and see you Friday.
Great discussion. It does very much feel like there is a bubble of skirmish games which could burst any time. As Kickstarter throws more and more games into the mix, you can see the ones that make a few hundred thousands dollars and are backed by a four figure number of people. I can’t help thinking if some of those backers will ever meet another soul who also owns that game. When the bubble bursts, I think we’ll see a period of consolidation. I doubt many of the games currently the new in thing will be around in 10 years… Read more »
Warren, here’s a quick thought – maybe the disposable games can be beneficial to us gamers. I have rarely (if ever) managed to get my ‘normal’ friends to join me in my wargaming/boardgaming hobby. Yet Xwing, has attracted a few of them to an occasional Fri/Sat evening, dining table game. So, I’ve increase my gametime and share my company with more people – win,win. I agree XWing has a huge, recognisable attraction – but if future types of these products can influence players from outside our usual community to join us playing (as they’re not required to invest heavily as… Read more »
I don’t think there’s any “maybe” about it. As @erastus says, there’s no right or wrong way to do the hobby, and the more people join in the better it is for all of us.
I think X-Wing combines lots of factors mass recognition, low cost entry, strong IP which enables this to cross over into mainstream retail. Over the years I’ve introduced lots of people to tabletop and RPGs as a hobby and only a small minority become life long gamers but it does show that these games can be gateway games.
That is absolutely true. You can see X-Wing as a gateway to other miniature games, but it wouldn’t do this for everyone.
to me a skirmish game is a section (10 men) level or lower, a contact level game is up to platoon level (40 men) an engagement level game would be company size then battalion level game and up would be a mass battle.
Skirmish and mass battle describe different types of combat rather than numbers involved. A mass battle usually takes place in a defined space and time and often involves large numbers of troops fighting in formation. A skirmish is a more ad hoc engagement and a mass battle can encompass skirmishes within it. A good rule of thumb on the tabletop to distinguish between the two is can each individual mini represent one man and the game still be a realistic simulation of the conflict. If it can, you’re probably in a skirmish, if it can’t, you’re probably in a mass… Read more »
I don’t disagree with you, I was trying to make the argument that model count size could be broken down into types, lets not forget that some big battles started off as a small skirmish. as an example The Battle of Gettysburg.
Many mass battles do. As I say, mass battles can encompass skirmishes, but they are conceptually different and it isn’t related to numbers (the difference in numbers being a side effect of the concept rather than the concept itself).
as I said I don’t disagree, but if you are trying to game with a mini count a scale of numbers could be defined. As an example in a game of bolt action, the players say to each other ‘lets have a skirmish game’, and bring on to the table 10 minis each, after the game they want to escalate it up up, all well and good so they then have a meeting engagement, ‘wow’ they say ‘this is epic’, they then turn to flames of war to have a mass battle.
Where to begin… Let me just checkout how my KS projects are doing first 😉 Right – still not sure about WWExodus. Why? Because it’s a new system and I already have a few which are my main hobby; namely Infinity and Flames of War. My 28mm ‘skirmish’ and my 15mm batt… ‘larger skirmish’. Now apart from those I have a large collection of boardgames, many with a small-step (thanks Justin) that can be pulled out with a casual group, played then put back in the box. Blood rage looks like one of those which just so happens to have… Read more »
I should say that building and painting is what I enjoy, I can disappear to my cave, put on some music and relax. The fact I get to play with some of these either at home, around at some friends or down the club is also an excellent excuse to show my handiwork off, but sometimes the minis are mainly for painting.
Me too! Building and painting are the two things that kept me in the hobby over the past decades 🙂 To have the gaming aspect on top is just the last bit that makes our hobby so exciting, which is even better if it’s with a bunch of friends.
Regarding your rescue team Warren, where did you get the vehicles from?, also the miniatures are looking fantastic,
Happy Sunday!
Point on having ‘perfection anxiety’ was well made. I have a high elf army that I have been working on for 15 years now… I think the key might be to try and start small and ‘slow grow’ armies when getting in to a game/army for the first time. I have a few armies that I got tabletop ready with the intention of going back to ‘finish’ alter. I’ll post if i ever get round to it 😛
Happy Sunday all, and good luck with the DZC boot camp!!
A good primer, maybe an airbrushed base ( a la John’s Blood Angel) a wash and a few picked out highlights is all you need sometimes for the grey wall – my approach to my Myth mountain anyway.
Per Chance I did post a comment under the WWX week thread yesterday making a similar point regarding the painting of minis. In short: As a beginner in painting I would love to see some painting basics for those weeks…quick look at color composition and an easy 3 Color paintscheme for basetroops…or something like that. Nothing against Romains tutorials…they are great…but you Need some skill already to follow them.
Perhaps you should take a look at GW’s painting tutorials. They are aimed at beginners and show how you can get a good tabletop standard finish using a few basic techniques.
@Soulsorcerer, best thing is have a look around on the web. With regard to colour theory, can find plenty on that, or pick what works for you. Basic tips I would alway give are: 1) get 2-3 decent brushes – GW/army paint fine for a start avoid cheap synthetic bristles. Don’t get anything to fine, flow of paint and control are far better than trying any tiny brushes. 2) Get an old plate or tile – never paint from the pot. 3) Clean your mini up properly, making sure you wash it if resin – warm water and washing up… Read more »
@dags Thanks a lot for the overview…sounds all quite easy and reasonable…will def try it that way…I think of “testing” the 2-3 basecolors with an armypainter qick shade on spare minis to see where that gets me…and than ofcause pratice,practice,practice. But I am quite useless when it comes to “imagining” what colors will look good on a mini. So take WWX week as an example…to make “test” minis to see what works for myself…or try and mix lots of colors in different quantetis to get to a color I think would look good…thats maybe the fun for an exp. painter…but… Read more »
@soulsorcerer will be good to see what you do 🙂 glad it seems helpful. As to colour selection its something that a lot struggle with. If you don’t want to do anything too original search the web for the models you painting and copy. Also if you thin paint and keep the detail clean, if you don’t like it a repaint should be no problem without stripping. Give it a try and see how you go, once you get basics there are some on here that can probably advise as to short cuts. I am terrible for that stuff I… Read more »
I had those Games Works Shop Cards
I remember having 4 sets, the 2 listed and also Eldar and guard
Gotta love a good skirmish game, but for me the point of these is “narrative” which some of the current crop of games seem to have missed out or tacked on like an after thought.
I’d be interested to know what others think?
I think skirmish games can be great for narrative, but equally they are great for competitive gaming too, probably better suited to it than mass battle gaming.
I like the diversity so collect arrange of scales and styles. The possible issue I have is that volume dilutes the potential player community so lots of days may well go the way of GW specialist games range. I do think in 5 years we will have a larger community and the number of games will of settled down some what.