TF22 (aka "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Bootleg FMP...")

Saw the notice about the Full Metal Planete "re-imaging" making its way to Essen. Anyone have any idea if this is going to be imported to the US by anyone? I don't mind paying the bazillion euros for the game but I'd love to avoid paying the extra half-bazillion to ship yet another game with the heft of a cinderblock (see e.g., Lost Battles, Where There is Discord, and Dragon Rage [but god is this edition lovely--I wish all the old Dwarfstar games would get this treatment] for examples of similar games where pricey games got hit with another 50% to the cost thanks to the shipping).

Unfortunately, I suspect the price is just too high to work up a bulk buy deal for US FATties. (And, to Barnes' question in the News item--no, the price on this is nowhere near the Troll & Toad price for the original FMP. T&T prices it at $400 for the original and I think Noble Knight and Fine Games both hit it at $350+.)

Yes, shipping on this should be horrific. I yearn for the days of home fab machines. Then we can just torrent the 3d scans of the parts and print them out. The handwringing on ToS about the appropriateness of copying the FMP was getting nauseating. It has new art and molds, and rewrote the rules, so they basically stole the mechanics. Good for them. Maybe it will terrify the original authors into reprinting or selling the rights. Is the game really that great, or does it just have cool parts and the sexiness of being super rare?

I basically laughed off the handwringing in a hurry. You'd have thought that after all the Age of Steam bullshit, folks would have learned a little something about board games and copyright. Maybe the EU has more stringent rules, but in the US, essentially, only the exact wording of the rules and certain elements of the art are protected. Frankly, that he made as many changes as he did was more of a courtesy than anything as far as I was concerned.

Far as the game goes, I'm relying more on the reports from a couple of friends whose judgement I trust who've played FMP and were enthusiastic. Basic take I had was "it's a bit fussy but the player smackdown and timer make it feel really different than other 'no random factor' euros." I believe this is one of those games my wife would dig, and, honestly, I'd like to buy a copy just to support the guy publishing it.

How much does the game weigh? Even sending 3 copies is a lot cheaper than sending 1. (per copy)
If you want to pool a shipment I can try to help sending it to one of you. I'd need to know the dimension and weight of the game to figure out what number of games would be cheapest to shipping per game. (I think it should be possible to ship 3 together for €45 = €15 p/c.) While I'm not going to Essen myself this year, I know several people who do. The only problem is that I don't have enough money currently to buy even one copy. Maybe some other F:ATties are going to Essen.

I have played FMP and while it is a great game it IMHO doesn't justify the prices it's going for, not even the €130 for the new version, but if you've got the money to spend it's a nice thing to own I guess.

The debates of plagiarism are bullshit. There are no legal issues and anyone who's against a reprint of a long out-of-print and sough-after game is a dunce.

God help us if patent trolls get a hold of game mechanics. Pretty much any one-sentence explanation in business process or software is patentable these days and has been. No clue why games have this golden exemption.

S.

Intellectual property = imaginary property. Kudos to TF Verlag.

Vaguely tempted by this, but the price is very steep. The metal figures may be reminiscent of the parent game but it seems a little gimmicky to me. But given that it's likely to be a limited print run (I seem to recall reading it was limited edition somewhere?). I remember spending many happy hours playing FMP on the computer when I was a teenager and was utterly crap at it: the AI spanked my pristine teenage bottom every time.

I hate to gloat, but there's something heartening about finding all this cool Ameritrash-style stuff is suddenly coming out of Europe and hard for you to get in the states. First Dragon Rage, now this. Makes a change as it's usually the other way round, so now y'all know what it feels like.

Actually, I lied. I love to gloat

Games Workshop has owned Ameritrash since the 70's. That's enough of a reason to gloat, Matt.

No way I'm buying this. Not on a bet. I'll wait until all of you boys get it and report on it. The question is whether you can tell the truth after dropping 150$ sight-unseen!

Schweig! wrote: How much does the game weigh? Even sending 3 copies is a lot cheaper than sending 1. (per copy)
If you want to pool a shipment I can try to help sending it to one of you. I'd need to know the dimension and weight of the game to figure out what number of games would be cheapest to shipping per game. (I think it should be possible to ship 3 together for €45 = €15 p/c.) While I'm not going to Essen myself this year, I know several people who do. The only problem is that I don't have enough money currently to buy even one copy. Maybe some other F:ATties are going to Essen.

I have played FMP and while it is a great game it IMHO doesn't justify the prices it's going for, not even the €130 for the new version, but if you've got the money to spend it's a nice thing to own I guess.

The debates of plagiarism are bullshit. There are no legal issues and anyone who's against a reprint of a long out-of-print and sough-after game is a dunce.

Or, like one well known asshat on CSW, they argue over copyright because their personal collection will be worth less than what it used to be.

Schweig! wrote: There are no legal issues and anyone who's against a reprint of a long out-of-print and sough-after game is a dunce.

Better not say that anywhere near Barnestorming: Ikusa.

SuperflyTNT wrote: Games Workshop has owned Ameritrash since the 70's. That's enough of a reason to gloat, Matt.

No way I'm buying this. Not on a bet. I'll wait until all of you boys get it and report on it. The question is whether you can tell the truth after dropping 150$ sight-unseen!

Pffft. Take that "can you be honest when spending $150 sight-unseen" shit somewhere else; it's weak sauce to a wargamer. $125+ is a standard retail pricepoint in this moldy corner of the hobby and I've bought expansions at that price. Le Franc Tireur and Heat of Battle ASL modules come immediately to mind. It will be eons before I'm far enough along in the ASL world to get to playing them (especially Nazaire which *really* puts the "advanced" in "Advanced Squad Leader"); I've learned the very hard way that, if I'm interested at all in the topic, it's just cheaper to buy new and shelve it than to wait "until I'm ready." The runs are so small that it's simply guaranteed it will be OOP and going for triple the original MSRP within a few months. E.g., I think I paid $25 for this "Swedish Volunteers" set--with its dozen scenarios, a few rulebook pages, and half-sheet of counters--simply as a throw-in with a larger order; I recently had someone offer me $150 for the thing because it was lasted about 6 weeks before completely selling out.

And, yea, I've most certainly spent a pile of bread and come home with some absolute fucking dogs at that price. I'm sure there are others if I thought about it--particularly when it comes to OOP games--but Decision Games' reprint of Highway to the Reich comes immediately to mind. You'd think it wouldn't be that hard to NOT fuck-up a game that had already been floating around for 30 years by the time they decided to reprint it. I'm a dumbass for not realizing that they changed the scale [so that the old game couldn't be played with the new components] before I bought it; they're idiots for making the rulebook actually WORSE than the original as far as I was concerned. It also ensured I wasn't about to cough up $300 (I think MSRP was $400+) for the War in the Pacific reprint as that one is far more complex and the original rules were...uh...troubled to begin with.

I keep that game on the shelf as reminder to read up on shit first...

Fuck Decision Games.

I hate how they stop us playing those classic SPI games on VASSAL and I HATE that to play War in Europe by email you have to buy their lame CD for $60.

I am never, ever buying anything from those thieves again and that includes S&T and WaW.

Message to DG, stop fucking up our hobby.

I too am on the anti DG bandwagon.

The Wacht "reprint" was a total fucking mess rules wise. Six years later and the designer has a bazillion other irons in the fire but has yet to issue fixed rules to Wacht 2.0. I sold my copy and made money off it thankfully. Yet supposedly in the next year he'll put out Wacht 3.0, Huertgen Forest, AND Atlantic Wall. The latter scares me - take the base "system" that he created for Wacht and layer in your typical chrome for a D Day game AND make it for a campaign that lasted 10 weeks.

Unfortunately, there seem to be enough people out there dumb enough to buy their stuff that they have no incentive to change their MO. I think their business model is actually clever. They maintain as low a profile on CSW as you can get; by keeping their potential customers in the dark they build up a customer base who has no clue about how much of a pump and dump scheme they are running.

The funny thing is that their stuff rarely comes up at auction. I think people buy it and are so overwhelmed by the mess that they just shelve it and never play it again, telling themselves they'll look at it but never get around to it.

On the other end are the dirt cheap folios that materialized out of nowhere last year. Word of mouth on them hasn't been good.