super_bruno

For some fun, just visit an Advanced Squad Leader forum and tell them that Memoir 44 is a wargame... You know, it seems to me there is a disturbing cult mentality in miniature wargaming. There's only one game that holds the truth and everything else is crap. By truth I mean the correct way to "simulate" war. Why are miniature wargamers so intolerant? Anybody has a clue? Maybe it has something to do with spending a lot of money on a game? Maybe they are afraid of finding another, much more enjoyable game and realising that the investment was not worth it?

Another idea came to me. Since you got two types of miniatures gamers. The first is the guy who want to play a game, but not interested in the hobby aspect. The second is the hobby guys, who enjoys all aspect. Terraclips is perfect for the first type, but doesn't keep the hobbyist from making hiw own, much more gorgeous terrain. Maybe they could do the same things with the models. Sell those unpainted metal models for those who wants to have a great looking army and take the time to paint it. And for those with less abilities, sell cardboard stand-in, similar to those found in Return of the Heroes (http://boardgamegeek.com/image/188573/return-of-the-heroes) or dungeon twister. (http://boardgamegeek.com/image/107107/dungeon-twister). It's even better because it would allow you to buy a cheap, big cardboard army, and start playing now. And slowly replace your cardboard models with nice painted models as budget, time and skills allows. Another alternative would be to put the cardboard models in the same box as the metal models. So you have the option to choose which one suits you better. I know there are some paper models you can download on the internet, but they are much more generic and you still have to print them, cut and glue. And from my experience with homemade cardboard terrain, it ends up being as expensive as real models, and the result is not worth the effort.

Hello to Nova Scotia! Down here in Montreal, there's that stupid white thing that fell from the sky yesterday. God do I hate winter! I sometime wonder what the heck was Jacques Cartier thinking... Didn't he like coconuts and bananas? When he came back after the first winter a found all his village decimated, didn't he think that going a bit to the south would be a great idea? I'll never understand. So back on topic, I'm happy the discussion is going well at the moment and haven't been reduced to pointless bickering yet. Like your comment about miniatures being bad games. I have to agree. I suppose the process of making a miniature game goes somewhat like this: "Hey guys! I cam up with this great unique simple rule that will allow to resolve everything for a miniature game. Let's try it!" Then while playing, one guy ask about cover, another about climbing, another about terrain, another question about heroes, double weapons, morale, cavalry... and you end up with a game based on one simple rule, with lots of exceptions and weird rules tacked on because they weren't taken into account at first. I got that feeling while reading LOTR rulebook. You get all those simple rules and I said, wow, that sounds great, then they start pouring exceptions on your head. Ouch! You can almost hear them saying: "So thats the rules... Oh! forgot to mention you about defending a wall. But that's it. Oups, there is also this multiple fighting thing, but that's the last one. Oh, did I mention magic powers? Don't worry it's really simple..., etc, etc. I think all the games are a bit like that. You have that awesome, simple system which sounds really really great. Except for the next five chapters of rules that don't really fit anywhere. Is it possible to keep the personnality and difference between each unit or model while still using really simple rules? And still keep a lot of flexibility?

GW also did a great thing with Lord of the Rings. I'm not sure how it is now, but you could buy a complete box. Which would hold miniatures for both players, dices, the rulebook and some terrain. In the rulebook you would find not only the rules, but also scenarios with a map of the terrain to use and a complete list of the forces for each sides and 50 pages on preparing and painting the models and on building terrain.

Maybe the hobby isn't mainstream because the guys making the games aren't mainstream. Maybe they are great gamers but not such great at marketing. Let's take a boardgame: You buy one box, and you have everything in it. Rulebook, dices, board, cards, pawns... How are marketed miniature wargames? Everything is separated. Sure it allows a lot of flexibility, which hardcore gamers will want, but it's daunting for mainstream players. You have to buy the rulebook, study the stats of each unit then buy those, assemble, paint, build terrain, etc, etc. You even have to buy the dices separately. Imagine if you had to buy a car this way. You have to buy a motor, and seats, doors, a steering wheel, brakes, you have to paint the body, etc. etc. I'm sure you would see a lot less cars in the street if it worked that way. Some games are going in the right direction. Terraclips for Malifaux and crewbox, Memoir 44, Claustrophobia, Space Hulk... On a boardgame box, you see clearly the number of players, the suitable age to play, playing time... We don't see those on a miniature wargame box or rulebook. Information is not easily accessible. You have to do some research. Why don't companies sell both painted and unpainted models? I know some people would be glad to pay a bit more to have a decent looking model. Some people just can't paint. I also think the hobby would benefit from following the learning method for Battlelore. In the rulebook, you have about 10 scenarios to play. Number one is pretty basic, then each following scenario introduces new units, new rules... Why aren't rulebooks following on this idea?

Thanks! I must say I learned the lesson the hard way about miniature games. But glad to know it's getting more mainstream than it used to be. Maybe we can thank games like Memoir 44, Battlelore and Heroscape for that. They are still miniature games but aimed to family and casual players. I just hope that the big games will follow some of those ideas and try to appeal a bit more to the masses. As I said, Wyrd took a great step in that direction with their crew boxes and terraclips. The boxes are not entirely successful, but terraclips are great. In 1 hour I was able to construct two 3-stories buildings connected by a bridge on the third floor. It would have taken me many months to do the same the old fashioned way. And it would be much uglier.

Mmm, I guess that didn't come across the way I intended. It was not me complaining about the hobby, it was rather a reflection on why I think wargaming is not more mainstream. I do enjoy painting, and have been painting on a off for about 20 years now. I'm no good with terrain and don't have much patience for that, or much room in the appartment, so I'm really happy with terraclips! I have no problems with the rules or stats or whatever. Except those crew boxes that can give the impression that all you'll ever need is one crew box and you'll be happy. I think Malifaux is one of the most accessible serious miniatures wargame out there. First the size of the crew needed is small. So keep the cost down. Models are superb. Each crew has it's theme, so there is something for everybody. Even my girlfriend wants to learn this game and that's saying something. I think the overall feeling of the game is more casual. It's not like other games where you have to think about mobility, and support, heavy fire, long range and all that logistic. You can build your crew like this, but it's much less an obligation than other games.

Mmm, an quick suggestion for future wargames. I know learning by yourself the strength and weakness of your crew is fun, by why not make a crew for dummies list or something. With colors specifying which model serves which role. For example green model is for melee, orange for ranged, red for support, blue for magic, etc, etc. And add some crew building tips like: A balanced crew should have 2 green models, 1 red, 1 orange, etc, etc.

Hello! I'm pretty new to miniature games (Malifaux is the first I've actually played, aside from Battlelore), I've been looking longingly at miniature games for a long time, I've got into boardgaming some years ago, I've read a lot of review comments, discussions, arguing and the like, and began to form an opinion about why it continue to be a niche market and why it's difficult to attract new players. I think there are a few points: 1- I think in general the gaming community and even more so the miniatures community assumes too much. A game is based on a lot of concept, and most of the time, the players don't introduce those concepts to the newbie. They assume that the newbie knows those concepts. He may know some of those, but maybe not all of them. Sometimes, even the rulebook assumes too much. Let's take Malifaux. Much of the game revolve around the fate deck. For most gamers, they know what a deck is, what a hand is, what a discard pile is, shuffling, hot to read the card, etc. So you explain quickly how the cards affect the game to the new guy, put the models on the table and begin to play, explaining while playing. But I think it's not the good way to do this, as I've learned when I taught my girlfriend to play. Never having played a game myself but having read lots of rulebooks, rpgs and the like. I was familiar with the concept of stats and special abilities for a character, with important units vs grunts, etc. So we got to play our first game, me explaining all the while. Then came the moment when I realised I was running toward a wall. She wanted to cast a spell. I explained: you have to flip a card, add it to you casting stat and beat the score to cast it. But it will fail if you don't also have the symbols required. The grayed one means it's already in the total because of your stat and blablabla. She just didn't get it. Why because she didn't know what a stat is supposed to be. She didn't know how to read the result on the card. She didn't know that the symbol was as important as the symbol. She didn't know about range, etc, etc. I had assumed to much. I started again, on another night from the beginning. THe real basics. First lesson, the card flip. No hand of card, no discard pile, just a deck, and flip a card. And how to read the result. Once that concept is learned, we moved to lesson two. Twisting fate. What the little square symbol mean, what the - or + sign inside the little square mean, and how it affect your flip. Lesson 3: Cheating fate... etc, etc, etc. It's not fun, it takes a long time, but it is necessary for her to be able to play and to have some fun. For those having a hard time following. Let's say you want to learn to play the piano. First class: Put your fingers there and there, push on the keys. GReat! You've learn a C# Major chord. Practice that. Woa, wait a minute! What's a C, what does major mean, what does # mean. Why are there black and white keys? Why aren't there black keys everywhere. You see what I mean? 2- Intimidating Remember the first you walked into your FLGS? You have all those weird guys with tape measures, books, cards and superb tables full of miniatures eyeing you suspiciously. You overhear, those to guys at the back arguing over rules: "You have to resolve magic first!" "No poison first!" "Look at page 153, rule 89.4 it says..." I think at that point I turned back and left, never to come back. From my experience gamers don't usually make good sellers. Part of it because of my point #1, they assume if you are there, then you know what WH40K, WFB and warmachine. When you ask, what are those guy playing: the usual answer is "That's Warmachine". OK, so what's Warmachine? "Well, it's like WH40K, but on a skirmish level, with a steampunk theme". Most people will just leave by then. I think the proper answer should be: "Are you familiar with boardgames and miniature wargaming?" If no, then maybe lead the customer to an ongoing game a try to explain what the basic of miniature wargaming is. 3- Costly. When in the store you ask about the price of getting into a game is. Most of the time, they will tell you the price for a starter box. Most of the time they will fail to tell you that a starter box is just good enough to learn to game, but you will quickly need to invest more. They will fail to tell you the price of the rulebook. They won't talk about the cost associated with painting (brushes, paint, tools, glue, pinning material, etc...), they won't tell you about the cost associated with buying the terrain to make your own table at home, etc. When you find out about all those by yourself, you usually give up. Spending 500$ on a game just to find out if I like it? No way. 4- Difficult (painting, modelling, terrain). This point is mostly aimed and the companies selling the games. It is difficult to get into miniature wargaming. Models are unpainted most of the time (when the are prepainted, the game is usually mediocre). You have to assemble the models and most are a pain in the ass to assemble. You have to build your own terrain or paint the pieces you've bought. I have to congratulate Worldworks and Wyrd for releasing Terraclips. That is the way to go to bring more players to the game. Make relatively cheap and beautiful terrain available. No need for skills and many hours. Just punch and assemble. Genius! 5- Not targeted to casual gamers. As a casual gamer, I want to play games with my girlfriend, with my friends and most would be interested in miniature wargaming. Except the investment required in time, money and skills. Also, I've heard a lot of comments like "well head to your FLGS and have a go". Bad advice. If you read my point number 2, you know I won't want to go. And I don't want to play with some guy I don't know, I want to play with my friends. I want to play when we both feel like it. Not plan it a few weeks in advance. Now I have to be critical toward Wyrd at this point. One one hand, they target more casual gamers with Terraclips. On the other hand, they sell you unbalanced crews in a box. So as a casual customer, I download the rules manual, get two deck of playing cards, buy two boxes that appeals to me and my girlfriend and play. Ooops big mistake. She got that really difficult to play crew, and the other box is inneffective against it. You find out on the forum that crews are not balanced against each other, but on a faction basis. You learn that the crew from the box is not sufficient, but have to get some more models to be effective. I think balance is vital for casual gamers. Why? Because casual gamers won't buy more than one box. Maybe much later they will, but not for a while. And a casual gamer will assume that if the company is selling a crew in a box, it's because it's playable, against every other box, without the need to add something to the crew. So if a casual gamer find out that one of his crew have a really hard time winning against the other, will he rush out and buy another box. Of course not, you'll find those badly painted models for sale on ebay, along with a book and all the painting material. Never to touch a miniature wargame again. I think that some information could have been added to the box. Or the rule book. Point out which crew is suited to play against which. Which is suitable for beginners. And mention that it's a starter box, that will quickly need to be expanded.

I am not totally against expansions and new models. But as I said, I am afraid they will bring too many rules to the game, too many options, and too many opportunity to build that invicible crew and shatter the balance. If I compare to WH40K. I've been interested in trying that game, but for a few reason I never did. One of those is that I would like to play Eldars, and Orks, and Space Marines, and Chaos, and Tyrannids... But it is not something realistic. To play all those different armies, I'd have to spend a lot of money and many many hours painting the models. One of the great things about Malifaux is the almost pick up and play apect. Pick a box, paint and play. Bored with that crew, pick a new box, which will play totally different. No need to look at the rules and stats for hours, studying the opponents options... Just get some minis and have some fun with my partner while learning the abilities of my crew during the game. By the way, I am pretty new to miniature games. I've been looking at them for over 20 years now but got to play my first miniature game (Memoir 44) a few years ago. I'Ve possessed the rulebooks of some but never got around to play them. I come from the boardgame side of things, and for me, a boardgame is good for more than 2 or 3 plays. The need for something new is not so developped in me. Being fairly new to the gaming community, I find it disconcerting to see that gamers forget how difficult it is to get into gaming at first. I remember my first game of Carcassonne was a bit baffling. Then it got easier. I moved on to ticket to ride, and it was not so bad, but not all that intuitive at first. Gamers tend to forget that game mechanics are not part of everyday life. Just present a character stats card to someone who has never played and RPG or Mini game. He won't know what the hell those numbers and letters mean. And it could be a while before he has a firm grasp on the concept. Once you've learned it, you can easily move from game to game, because the basic concept is the same even if the stats are a bit different. You say miniature games is a niche market. But why is that? And does it need to be a niche market? Memoir 44 and Battlelore have done a great job so far expanding that market. I think it is possible to expand the market and make it less niche. Why not release a tutorial for Malifaux? There are a lot of mechanics in there and it can be overwhelming if presented all at the same time to a newbie. I've come up with my own method of teaching Malifaux. First teach about the heart of the game: The flip, and how to read the results. Then explain the twist, what the symbols mean and how it affect the flip. Then explain how to cheat fate, and use soulstone, and then explain a full simple duel. Then an opposed duel. When all this is mastered by the newbie, I move to another concept: The Actions, etc, etc. It takes a lot of time, but it pays in the end. I do understand the need for the company to make money, but there are many ways to do that. One of them is to keep on releasing new stuff for the game.

Yes ouf course you are going to lose at first. But because you have not mastered you crew's skills. Not because your crew suck or can't win against the opponent's crew. As they release more models, it will be harder and harder to keep this fragile balance. I always saw Malifaux as a game where you bought a little crew box, and played with it, getting better and better. Then you add 2 or 3 models to your list, so you can have a bit of diversity. Then when you get bored with this crew, you try another. With 20 crews so far, it can keep you going for quite a while, and spending a lot of money already. So what's the appeal for new models? I think it's for those who wants to create the ultimate unbeatable crew. And that is where the delicate balance of the game will fail. If my opponent has enough choice to build his crew so that he will always have the best selection for every situation, I'm at the risk of losing interest in the game because I get beaten every time. Not because of a lack of skill. But because I didn't spend enough money. And I sincerely hope my ability to win the game will continue to be based on my skill and not on the size of my wallet. Edit: I did a quick calculation. With the 20 crews (and not counting special forces), you already have 190 different possible matchup at the moment. Just counting the 5 core strategies, that gives you 950 different games. Add to this different terrain, a few different models to add to each crew. I think it can keep you going for a long long time... As for Wyrd making money... If I buy every crew box for the guild, then add 1 of each additionnal model, that brings me to about 370$. With four other factions, and the three books. It must be around 1500$ of stuff I can buy. Getting customers to spend 400$ on a game is not that bad I think. The question is, do you keep on milking the same cow, or do you get a new one?

Glad to see at least one person agree with me! I know the comparison is not that good, but we can see that chess keeps going on and on, and they don't keep coming up with new models and rules every week. When speaking about new players, I didn't mean attracting players from the Warhammer crowd, or those of war machine, but new miniatures players. Those that have never played a miniatures game. I think there's a lot of potential players out there. What drew me to Malifaux was the theme (which appealed to my girlfriend to, so I have a playing partner), the low model count (both in the game and the choice in buying them) and simple rules, without 5 different versions, and 10 expansions each, plus codex and and and.... I feel what attracts some people to Malifaux is that simplicity. New models are great, but if you ask me to choose between 18 factions, and 10 crew in each, I would feel overwhelmed and not inclined to get in the game. It would be disappointing for me to see a game that was different and which appealed to me for exactly this reason, follow the same route as others have done. Why not say, Malifaux the skirmish game is complete. Now let's focus on puppet wars, Malifaux RPG, Epic Malifaux, Malifaux the videogame, Malifaux the lunchbox! Malifaux the Flamethrower! Plenty of options to expand, while keeping the game intact.

Well, my opinion is this: If you keep expanding the game, making it more complicated, with tons of models, you'll keep the fans happy, but it will be harder and harder to get into the game. On the other hand, if you stop the game where it is, you'll stop selling things to old players, but it will be much more easier to bring in new players. So either you have a small fanbase that is always buying new things, or a larger player base that buys less things each, but overall it could be similar in terms of making money. I'd prefer the second option.

NOw that the third expansion (which had been announced in the first rulebook) has been released. Is Malifaux considered complete, or wil there be further expansions? I am afraid that releasing further expansions will bloat the game too much, make older models obsolete and unusable and change the game too much. What do you think?