CannibalBob

So are we back to the early days of 1st edition with the Guild is so OP discussions? Congratulations on the win.

Let us know how it turns out. I would like to see a picture of the mat with some terrain and models on it. I have been thinking about getting the cobblestone mat from Deepcut studios, but I have never seen any of their products in person.

Where is this advert? I must see it.

There should be a male version of Gracie that is a Bull and is named Sir Loin.

I did not disagree with your cost analysis. I was merely saying that I think to see the true value that you get with Malifaux that you should look at the full picture across the game and not for individual models.

I agree. Right now all they have proven is that what they do exceptionally well is the skirmish-scale Malifaux. I have zero experience with any of their board games so I cannot comment on those. I am rather interested in Darkness Comes Rattling, but I will admit that I was not interested enough to invest in it from the gencon sale (there was way too much Malifaux stuff competing for my extra cash). I will most likely pick it up, but I will get it from the general release at some point. But I think they have done an excellent job with Malifaux. My experience watching them in the miniature game market tells me that they have a fair clue at what they are doing (they are one of the more transparent companies out there) which is why I think they have a good shot at putting out a good game at a different scale. But I could be wrong. I am fully willing to admit that I may be wrong and that it may have happened on at least one or more occasions (don't listen to my wife on this matter...).

This is a fair point. I have played miniature games for over 25 years now (starting to get old... get off my lawn you whippersnappers!), and I think the best way to look at the true cost/value of a game is not to look at the individual price of a playing piece but rather to look at the various costs of: initial starting buy in, average total cost of a "standard" sized force, and the overall cost of continued expansion (what does the game ask me to regularly spend as it continues to grow). Malifaux is BY FAR the best value in just about all of those categories compared to other miniature games on the market (worth mentioning that Infinity is roughly in the same spot as well). Yes, you don't get as much physical stuff for the price, but the game delivers more quality playtime experience for a smaller price than almost every competitor. Wyrd has done an excellent job in that regard. The game is set up extremely well for those people on a limited budget. It allows you to do very well at a fairly small buy-in (2nd edition does an even better job at this than 1st ed). But I think the designers were very astute in how they also allowed the factions to bleed into one another which can lead players to a very organic expansion of their collections. And the game is also set up in a such a way that those of us with a fairly large amount of disposable hobby income can spend an awful lot of it in the game if we want. The only person who I don't think Malifaux is the best value as a miniature game on the market is the person who is solely a modeler/painter. Now, let me first say that I think the Malifaux models are absolutely fantastic and some of the best on the market. The material is great and easily my favorite plastic material to work with as a modeller (I prefer it to the softer GW plastic). I also think the sculpting and poses are great. But the reason I don't say it is the best value for that crowd is simply that it costs a fair bit per model and I am specifically referring to the crowd that is mainly interested in the artistic hobby aspect and less in the game. Malifaux is still good to that crowd, but it is probably not the best in market. For that crowd I think you either need to look to the extremely conversion friendly GW or the ultra-detailed resin-cast miniature makers (like McVey or Mierce). But in regards to gameplay per dollar I don't think very many companies come close to Wyrd.

I forgot about Chompy Bits. I don't think they mentioned him as a Tyrant in 1st edition and added that tidbit into the 2E Crossroads book (or maybe I never noticed it).

I agree. My statement was not a jab against Wyrd. I love Wyrd and tend to gush about them quite a bit on both these forums and others. I was simply trying to convey that I prefer to shop local if I am going to pay full price. When I internet shop I am generally looking to stretch my dollar farther by going through a retailer with a fair discount such as Miniature Market or Discount Games. When it comes to Malifaux I have a fairly even buying split of local and discount. I have shopped at a particular store in town for around 10 years and at times we have a fairly strained relationship for a number of reasons. I buy a lot of stuff online for that reason. However, they carry a fair amount of Malifaux product while nobody else in town really does and so I will reward them with my business for that reason. I am a firm believer of voting with my wallet - which is why I buy stuff during Wyrd's online sales as well (I love the exclusive products they make and would like to continue to see them make them).

I have seen this mat in person and it looks very good for an old west themed board: http://store.frontlinegaming.org/fat-mat%3A-western-waste-3x3/dp/6363

Fair enough. I rarely look at their store other than when they have the exclusive sales. Nothing against Wyrd, but if I am going to pay full price for their products then I am going to give a cut of that sale to my local store.

I understand your point, but I have to point out that you can currently play as 2 different Tyrants in Malifaux.

I think the best part of the new website is that the url for the webstore is: giveusyourmoneypleasethankyou-wyrd.com

I am rather surprised that he did not simply have Seamus deal with the Brewmaster himself. I have no doubt that the Brewmaster is hard to shift when he gets to do his thing in the middle of a chunk of the enemies crew as he can extremely disruptive, but there are a few models out there that I think can be very dangerous to the Brewmaster and Seamus is one of them.

I was thinking about this, and I think that if Wyrd can pull off a good rule-set and good price-point for a large scale game that this might be their ticket to a big spot in the market. As long as they can generate a good buzz, deliver a quality game, and not have too many production issues then I think this is a really smart idea. I think game companies need to diversify their product lines in order to grow and stay healthy. Companies like Privateer Press do show that you can do well and grow from a single game, but if Warmachine/Hordes were to rapidly tank then they would have serious issues and probably cease to exist rather quickly - or at least scale down significantly. You only need to look at what happened with Rackam and Confrontation to see that. You can see that these companies also recognize this by their attempts to create games for other genres such as card games, board games, RPGs, etc (both Wyrd and Privateer have been doing this the last few years) to varying success. The miniature games market is pretty competitive right now, but I think the Board/Card game market is even more competitive. There are a lot of successful players in those markets and the barriers to get in are lower. Plus if you move into those markets then you have to compete with Fantasy Flight and I think that is really tough to do right now. Fantasy Flight has a lot of resources at their disposal since they were purchased by Asmodee. They have a fantastic games design team, a very good art department, and good distribution chain (which lets them sell in big-box retail stores and hit a wider sales base). Every game they put out tends to be pretty high quality, regardless of how good the game is (I rarely see complaints about the quality of the components in the boxes). They also tend to be the go-to company for IP licensing. It is really tough to compete with the stable of high-selling IPs that Fantasy Flight has. Seriously, who can compete with the Star Wars IP? Slapping Star Wars on a box is almost a license to print money, and FF has a good track record of making good games with that IP to boot. I think Wyrd can do a better job leveraging their experience and name in the miniature games market. If you look at the current state of the market for miniature game you will notice that it is full of niche products. Not many companies make directly competing products. The only companies that I see who are duking things out in the same design space right now are Spartan and Hawk Wargames who are fighting for the Space Fleet & 15mm planet assault spaces. Everyone seems to have managed to carve out a specific niche. But it also appears that the "skirmish" area is getting pretty saturated. I think Wyrd has a really good presence and foot-hold in the skirmish games space, but with even Games Workshop trying to move into that area with Age of Sigmar it is rather crowded. Privateer Press seems to be slowly moving away from the skirmish space, but they are moving at the rate of molasses. They seem a lot like GW and 40k in that respect. They started out with a skirmish game (Warmachine mk1 and Rogue Trader 40k) and then created a 2nd edition that moved to a strange design space that is a bit big for skirmish but a bit small for company-sized games. Eventually 40k moved all the way to being company scale. Privateer needs to do this as their product lines and game-design space is getting bloated really fast, but I don't think they have plans to do this anytime soon. But there is only one real game in the company-sized game and that is 40k. Nobody else has managed to break into that space, and it seems that GW is not having the best time as they have shown negative profit-growth for a number of years now and they just dropped Warhammer Fantasy like a sack of bricks. I think there is a current window for another company-scale game right now. I also think there is a window for someone to jump into that space and establish themselves before Privateer Press figures out that is the direction they need to go with Warmachine. In my opinion Wyrd has a very good opportunity here, the question is if they can pull it off. But of all the current miniature companies, I think Wyrd is probably the smartest in regards to knowing what they are doing so I think they are well suited to the challenge.

I think that a lot of the current cost of the Malifaux models is based around the scale of the game. The game is meant to play with a fairly low model-count and so they need to charge a relative premium on the models in order to make ends meet with a product that requires purchasing less physical product. My guess is that if they are creating a larger scale game that they will be able to lower the price per model to keep the cost of playing the game within reason. I am not an expert, but I believe that the main cost in the production of plastics is the tooling of the metal mold. Once you have that it costs very little to produce lots from that mold. The problem with Malifaux is that due to the character-driven nature of the game you cannot expect a ton of sales from most molds. Most of the time you will only sell a single copy of any particular box to a player. Even in the case of minions most sets come with enough of a minion in the box that people rarely double up (Bayou gremlins and piglets come to mind). So the costs per model is fairly high in Malifaux to compensate for the small sales each model/set is likely to generate. But it should be entirely within their ability to create sets that can generate larger sale runs for a larger scale game. This should allow them to push down the price of certain sets (units and models that will see duplicate sales per player) due to economies of scale coming into effect. The only way for Wyrd to bring economies of scale to Malifaux would be for the game to accumulate a massive player-base. In my opinion, Wyrd has shown that they are pretty shrewd and intelligent in their business decisions, so I have faith that they could do a good job bringing another miniature game to market. Sure, they have made some slip-ups and goofs along the way, but they have recovered and grown in a better fashion than any other miniature company that I have seen in the last few decades. I have not seen a single decision that they have made, good or bad, that does not seem to be motivated by a benefit to their customers, the game, and themselves.

While the Privateer Press release cycle has worked well for them, I think it is really starting to widen the cracks in the game. I think the constant horizontal expansion of that game is going to really hurt it in the end. I think that Privateer Press has already reached the point where Warmachine and Hordes have rather bloated product lines. A lot of the things they are releasing anymore, despite having some nice models, have very niche roles in the game or are very close in rules to other units. They have used up a lot of the design space in the main factions. I think that their expansion method would have worked out better if they had introduced multiple smaller constrained factions rather than keep dumping into the main factions. They are reaching the point where they really need another game because they cannot keep dumping new stuff into Warmachine until the end of time. I have an entire room at my house for miniature and board games and I own thousands of dollars of miniatures across various games going back twenty years. I own 3 factions for Warmachine/Hordes and I now question every single purchase for that game. I realistically have more stuff than I could possibly play regularly in a year (even if I had more time to play regularly than I do) due to the way the game is designed. They keep dumping new stuff into the game and at a certain point you step back and look at your collection and think "this stuff is not super compelling rules-wise, and I already have far beyond the amount of stuff I can regularly use. Should I bother buying any more?". Warmachine/Hordes is the first game that I ever considered selling any parts of my collections. The game is not designed in such a way to allow you to rotate through a lot of models on a regular basis and the game is not built to effectively allow the regular use of niche-models since you do not realistically know if their niche will have a use in any particular game until the game starts. I think Malifaux is better designed for horizontal expansion and has a ways to go before it ends up being bloated. For Warmachine to continue to grow Privateer Press really needs to move it to be a full-scale battles game. Otherwise they simply have too much crap in the product line for the scale of game that it is.

Yeah, the Crossroads Seven being out of stock kept me from placing a fourth order.

I have been purchasing stuff from the Gencon sale for a number of years now and I have to say that this was the best online store experience I have had. You guys did a great job overhauling the website and the store. That said, I would like to express just exactly how annoyed I am that you filled this sale full of a billion things that I want and lack the willpower to not purchase. Thanks a lot for taking my paycheck. I will let my children know that you are the reason they have to eat ramen for a month.

I don't disagree, but I think they came to some very bad conclusions and apparently do not even know the history of what it was that put them on the map in the first place. Forgetting where you come from can have some dire consequences. I think this is especially true given how fast electronic entertainment has been advancing. Remember, these guys built a company back in the time when the gameboy did not exist. Alternate forms of entertainment are becoming much cheaper and prevalent. Kids are getting incredibly powerful cell phones and tablets at younger and younger ages (especially the children whose parents can afford to purchase into an expensive hobby such as this). Video games do not need a community, and many online games come with one built in. Miniature wargames and the hobby DO require a community. Not many people stick with the hobby if they do not know anyone else who participates in it. Even if you mainly paint and model you need someone to wow with your projects other than your parents. That community that GW no longer cares about is WHAT grew their games and customer base. Other gamers are the ones that recruit the new blood. Games Workshop is not prevalent enough to do that job themselves. I think it is VERY telling that almost EVERY miniature game company I can think of has programs to help promote their game and build community (often using player volunteers). These game companies seem to all realize that the community is important. It gives your game and your playerbase a sort of growth momentum. The more players you have the more people will see your game and become interested. This is a sort of organic exponential growth. This revolving door of new gamers that they quickly discard is not going to work unless they change their approach to reaching that audience. In the past it was often veterans of their community that brought a lot of the new blood into the game. You lose those guys then you have to do that yourself, and GW does very little advertising. They are going to have to do a Warhammer cartoon or something if they want to grab the attention of young kids in a large enough quantity to easily discard them.

Can you post a picture of a mat with the strat & scheme lines?

I like the look of it so far. I would offer some professional opinions since I build software (mostly web related) for a living, but I don't do much with the front-end or user-interface. I mostly crunch back-end server code. Awww, it's not built with Angular... *sad hipster developer face*

Oh good lord. My Somer summoning factory just got so much nastier... I love it!

Malifaux. We even get campaign rules with the next book.

Except for Ulix's box!