Study in Emerald Impressions?

CSI says they're out of stock now. Wonder if it's really gone. If so, I guess I got it at the right time.

Chaz wrote: CSI says they're out of stock now. Wonder if it's really gone. If so, I guess I got it at the right time.

It's gone in and out of stock at CSI many times now. It will likely pop back in stock in a day or two. It makes you wonder if they are purposely showing a low inventory number to drive demand.

There's no way a fine, upstanding establishment like CSI would do that. They draw the line at listing games as out of stock on their website, yet listing copies on Amazon for 2-3x the retail price.

JEM wrote: "Fuck off to a euro-gamer website" isn't a particularly useful contribution, is it?

BTW, saying that if someone finds insulting comments insulting then they won't last, makes no fucking sense.

No, it's not a useful contribution if it was actually fucking said, which it wasn't.

I can elucidate further for the terminally illiterate. If you are so sensitive as to think that your quoted phrases are insulting, then you may find it difficult to have extended conversations on this site without constantly feeling offended. I hope that makes a little more fucking sense to you.

Is it Friday yet?

I will admit that I think the game might be improved by having to take a shot with each sanity counter drawn. A double if you draw a mad counter.

JEM wrote: Did I touch a nerve?

Nope. Just pointing out that it doesn't take much imagination to figure out how to make it work with miniatures. You said you couldn't envision how to do it, I illustrated one of an infinite amount of possibilities. I think the better answer for the 22 agent chits would be to simply have a reference card with all of them on it, were miniatures made. This is what I meant by the "card". I'm sure I wasn't clear on that point.

I rarely expect anyone to agree with me, but I'm beginning to think you may not have actually played the game. It's just not feasible to remember what is on what card when dealing with agent abilities on the board, I also don't think you understand just how crowded the board gets even with chits and 8mm cubes, much less how much time it would take to keep all those figures standing upright.

You're definitely right there on the first point - I've never played it. As for being feasible...I can rattle off every single power for every single unit in Heroscape, which I assure you has more than 22 individual units. I don't think memorization is fun, though, which is why I mentioned the card. Again, I think I was imprecise on my verbiage about the card. "Reference Card" would've been clearer. As to "standing upright", if you've ever played any number of DoaM games, especially War of the Ring, you'd know that it's not truly that difficult, if you're not ham-handed.

When you have five players moving all this stuff around, being able to clearly see what is happening where is vital to keeping the game moving.

I reckon that you have to accept that the board was designed with the intention of using the parts that they chose, and therefore, if they chose 10mm-15mm miniatures, they would have made a larger board. That said, with the status quo, totally valid point.

I have no problem with minis, I miss my WH40K and WHFB armies, my Blood Bowl teams, my decades old "good" paints that were still good last I saw them. Minis are just no good for this game. The price is because it's a Treefrog game, and they all seem to be expensive now. I'm not going to defend it.

I get that...not saying you're not a fan of miniatures. You made it clear in your "Welcome" note that you're a big GW fan, or were, and I can totally relate to that. I'd argue that miniatures can work with ANY game, provided the designer makes the decision up front to do that, and allow for that. Sort of like how a game like Memoir '44 might have been more intuitive as a chit-hex game but is amazing as a miniatures game that forces you to remember a few things.

I also find your final comment smug, condescending, dismissive and basically insulting, and I don't appreciate it. So much for a polite conversation.

It wasn't intended as such. If I wanted to call you a retarded cuntbag, I would've. I'm not shy. Opinionated Gamers is a site that is heavy on Euro-style games, and they are not really friendly to games that have a lot of theme as expressed as awesome plastic toys. You indicated that you could not envision how miniatures could work, and thus the "punchline" was that you are of the mind that toys can only work in games that aren't "smart enough" for the big kids. It was a joke.

The others are right ... if that's the kind of thing that's going to get you riled up, you may want to put on some bearskin to be in this place...shit can get dicey. That said, I meant you no ill will, so take it as I've described - a tongue-in-cheek playful gesture.

Welcome to the Fort.

I disagree that miniatures are a reasonable design decision for any game, unless you take the eurogame design method and start with desired components and force every game to require them. I still think that would shut out certain kinds of game design by forcing miniatures, and also exclude the possibility of a small, portable inexpensive game that has a lot of game to it, like Death Angel.

Sure, you could re-design Death Angel to have map sections and miniatures, and then in effect no longer have Death Angel but instead have Space Hulk 4th edition. There are other cases where you might want the ability to cram a lot of different units into a small space (many wargames, or FFG's War of the Ring, and stacking chits is just a lot more practical than piling up miniatures.

But I could also see a situation where you could effectively combine the 3D appeal of a miniature with the convenient information presentation of a chit, like with Mansions of Madness. You wouldn't even need to necessarily make the chit info a separate piece, you could simply have the stats be part of the miniature sculpt, with numbers right on the topside of the base of the figure.

I think there are valid reasons for a more spartan appearance to some games, including the idea of keeping them smaller and cheaper and easier to bring to market. There's an entire genre of gaming dedicated to it, based on the premise that small and simple with a conservative look is worth a $24.99 purchase price. For games like that I think minis can be counterproductive price-wise and appearance-wise. I think there needs to be a unity to the appearance and design, and at times that means cubes on a simple board.

At times it doesn't, and I think TI:3 may be the single-most impressive game you'll ever see spread on a table. But it's nature isn't small and simple.

S.

This is a bit of a derail, but I just want to mention the game Carnival Zombie. It uses different coloured cubes to represent different kinds of zombies, and while the game has a lot of flaws (the rule book being a major one), the cube thing works really well. They feel every bit as menacing when they advance towards your little group of survivors as minis would have, but because of a special rule, it has to be done with cubes. The thing is that every time you kill one or more zombies, you have to drop them off on a small cardboard tombstone. And if they fall of (because you miss or because it's getting full), you place them back on the board. This may sound stupid, but it adds a lot of actual tension to the game when the zombies you've just killed can come right back in.

The idea that theme can be expressed by miniatures is ludicrous...unless we're talking about the "theme" that is actually "setting". Like Mads points out, the THEME generated by confronting an unstoppable mob is just as easily expressed with cubes as it is with figures. And the "resurrection" mechanic he talks about is actual theme...again, that does not need miniatures.

Miniatures are NOT always necessary, nor are they always the right product design decision. El Grande would look fucking stupid with a bunch of little figures on the board, its entire aesthetic would be altered.

Haven't played Study in Emerald, but from what I've seen it sounds like there's no reason for there to be miniatures.