Why hate on the TT?

I played the heck out of 40K, Legions of Steel, and Mutant Chronicles about 10-15 years ago. I love playing table top mini games. I think the biggest reason I don't play any more is, well, I can't afford it. The price point for the hobby is just too high for me today.

Boardgaming is great in that I don't even have to buy all the games. I can buy a few and other in my group buy a few, and together we make a nice collection.

So I'll probably never buy another miniature game again in the foreseeable future. Unless GW comes way down in price. *holding breath*

MattDP wrote: First GW are not a very user-friendly company. I don't like paying their ridiculous prices . . .

If you're going to do tabletop I'd recommend getting off of a single-provider game and ruleset. I realize most here find Ancients a less-than-gripping theme, but if you're willing to play with War Elephants instead of Dreadnaughts you have a lot of choice and the pieces mix and match easily as long as your bases match.

MattDP wrote: Second I've always been irritated by the way in which the majority of miniatures gamers treat painting and modelling as more important than the game.

Go 15mm. Cheaper and no one can really paint them with all that much detail anyway. I suppose at that point you could just go with a wargame though.

MattDP wrote: Third - and this is kind of an extension of the above - I grew tired of the endless exploitable holes in mini gaming systems.

Ancients tend to have this happen less, because the battles are sims and the rulesets have been around for years. I suppose there's a turd in every group though. I personally like the free-form of measure-and-move but I got to watch a 25yo ass get up in the face of my 9yo boy over a placement issue. You need to find a reasonable set of players just like in any other social event.

Ancients (and Napoleonics and ECW/ACW) tend to attract men instead of boys and some of the issues you mention wane. But if you don't like the theme I suppose none of this matters.

S.

Matt, Ken,

To be fair two of your three reasons (painting and rules) are only really problems if you're in the tourney scene. Playing at a buddy's house you can get away with any type of mini (painted or not) and you'll hardly ever get into rules arguments.

As far as cost, yeah it can be costly, but that can be managed by proxies, second hand minis, etc. Alternatively, play skirmish level games instead of army v army. Regardless, I'd wager boardgame players spend just as much, but on countless boardgames and expansions.

I do agree with a lot of the sentiment though. Minis can be time consuming. Personally, I don't like to play them too often anymore because I refuse to play with unpainted minis. I have OCD like that. I could care less what my opponent uses or if they're painted, but I want mine in their Sunday best.

For me, the upside has always been that all of the players are vested in the game. Bring out a boardgame and you have the game owner explaining the rules and knowing them a bit more than everyone else, or worse the guy complaining because he 'didn't know about that rule'. Then the game may or may not strike a chord with the players. Sometimes this leads to bored players or a $50 game that only gets played once or twice. With a minis game everyone decides to participate up front. So, all the players are expected to know the rules and contribute to the success of the campaign (be that narrative, providing terrain, etc). Ultimately, I find this stye of group investment a more rewarding game experience.

Plus, when fully realized look way cooler than any boardgame.

I hate painting, don't want to pay for prepainted minis, and don't see much point in playing with unpainted minis -- at that point I'd just as soon use counters.

Plus if I'm going to invest a bunch of outside-game-time prepping for a game, I'd rather do it for an RPG than minis.

It is a lifestyle choice, sure, but I would love to but the table I made for it to good use. Unfortunately, most of my friends who wargame live over an hour away and I don't get to see that often. I love to paint, though. I'm also the only one here who actually writes up session reports about them.

I can recommend Warzone 1st ed over WH40k any day. Hell, VOID is a better choice than 40k. As for minis, I can't be arsed to have the "authentic" minis, so I make due with what I have. Pimp Guardsmen work well as Heretic Legionnaires, Punks from MC1, or gangers for Necromunda. If you look around, you can find rulesets for almost ANY type of game you want to play, most of them are free. Also, in my quest to track down similar models in the vein of Mutant Chronicles, I've found some amazing model companies that put out their own lines, and they're not attached to any license. So, they are cheaper.

Lastly, the next game I ACTUALLY want to get into is AT-43. The sculps are great, they're pre-painted, and they're relatively cheap if you're not artistically inclined.

Here's the deal:

If I spend 1000$ on boardgames in a year, I get variety.
If I spend 1000$ on Warhammer shit a year, I get one game. A really neat game, yes, but still, one game.

Case closed.

Anyone want to get into Ex Illis, let me know. I have a whole swath of this shit, still in the box on sprues, I'd love to dump on someone.

Two of my friends are WAY into 40k, like writing strategy articles and getting flown to cons level, so I get to nicely dodge a lot of the issues people have since if I feel like playing I can just tag along with them and be handed a beautifully painted army of whatever faction I feel like playing. I still think 40k rules are a little shot and would rather play something else, but the inertia of getting people to switch (and in the case of these two, it being a huge money maker for them) is too much to overcome.

Minis look awesome on the table when you've got the whole thing going on, but for my lifestyle takes-up-tons-of-time-and-money gaming I'm an RPG player to the core. Bonus points now thanks to really digging 4E that I get to do combats on pretty swanky looking terrain and maps with pretty good looking minis anyway.

A lot of the gripes about mini games can be mitigated by picking the right system and the right people to game with. Loopholes, army min/maxing, painting and modeling grips can all be limited by the people you game with. Much like the people you game with can ruin an AT or Euro game by playing a different style than you're used to playing.

Cost can also be controlled by picking the right system. When cost is a consideration a Miniature Mill like Privateer Press or Games Workshop would be bad. There's plenty of other companies that focus on higher quality rules and lower model counts - Infinity and Malifaux to name a few.

Or the online home brew rule sets are always an option as well. I've seen a rule set that uses Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars to fight out car combat Mad Max style. With a dozen cars needed for two sides and cars running a $1.00 or so each, you can do miniature gaming for less than $20.

The problem though is the farther you get from those Miniature Mills the harder it is to find opponents. With a boardgame I can find opponents who want to game...With a miniature game I need to find opponents that want to play a specific game. That's the main reason why for me I've moved from miniature games to boardgames. I just need to maintain a circle of gamers and not a circle of say 40k Gamers or Warmachine Gamers.

Ken B. wrote: Here's my resaons:


1. It's expensive
2. I can't paint worth shit
3. The imprecision in a game system that demands precision (i.e., the ruler) is maddening. "Did you bump him?" "No." "Ah, you're short a fraction of an inch." "No I'm not!" "You moved him too far!" "Nuh-uh!" "You didn't put him back down exactly as he was." Argggghhh

I'm really surprised that more people haven't given Monsterpocalypse a shake now that the game's switched to a non-collectible format. The Two-Player Battlebox contains everything that two players need to play, including maps, buildings, all the necessary accessories (dice, etc.) and two complete and fully playable faction armies,

1) at a price point of $35 online (or $50 MSRP.) That's a HELL of a deal, and at the very least it's significantly more game for less money than Assault on Black Reach (which I believe is still the current 40k intro box set.) And this is in addition to the upcoming DMZ expansion, which for $40 MSRP (we're guessing $30 online) you get a faction-specific box containing the rest of your faction's monsters, another bevy of units from Series 2-3, and a handful of faction-specific installations. If I hadn't gone crazy on Ebay and booster cases a couple years ago, this is DEFINITELY how I'd have wanted to get into the game.

2) It's pre-painted. Possibly the best pre-painted models I've ever seen.

[img size=Original]http://goldenboat.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/monpoc-game-photo.jpg[/img]

(Click for full size!)

And of course, my boy Gorghadra...



3) It's played on a gridded map with no Line of Sight rules. No hairs' width sportsmanship-testing judgment calls necessary.

Point #3 rules Monsterpocalypse out as being a "true" tabletop miniatures game, it's still a goddamned great game with miniatures and I'd love to see more folks try it out.

I'm weird in that I consider grid-based miniatures games to be a different beast. I know that technically they are not, but they aren't of the same "true" genre in my mind's eye, and I've heard enough miniatures purists sniffle and huff when talking about their "lesser" brethren.

I own Monsterpoc Voltron even though I've never played it. I'm a Voltron fan so they're just sort of decoration; I'll probably play it someday.