"Battlefront Miniatures only" Topic

The question is, "How will this effect the shops that stock multiple companies in WWII 15mm?" Basically, if they have a good amount of customers that like playing in FOW events and the stores get some prize support for those events, then watch the competition disappear off the store shelf and walls.

I think FOW has been very successful at getting stores to limit their selection of 15mm WWII to just their products, due to packaging and such. They may feel that they have accomplished this goal enough now to add this final step. I know one shop owner with absolutely no problem with FOW new approach.

Maybe I spoke hastily – the major local event, at GothCon, seems to be planned as an official thingy.

I doubt it stays official after this piece of news.

John, one thing that differs is that official tourneys give you ranking, which means you can compare it, and go to some sort of finals and such.

I think they help with prices, as well.

If your company produces the whole package (minis rules,terrain etc etc) like GW or Battlefront it really isn't in your interest to promote other companies who sell similar stuff. Hence the whole lets pretend we are the hobby and no one else exsists mind set these companies have.

most wargames companies, who are small in comparassion to BF or GW only, produce only one of the three main items you need for a wargame (ie miniatures, terrain or rules) and will probably increase sales by letting people know were to get the other items they need.

It's really not difficult to understand BF, like GW, has abussiness model that works on a one stop shop idea. Telling people they can get better, cheaper product else where let alone allowing people to use it at an offical event isn't good for their bussiness model.

I think the main problem for BF is unlike GW,who have a lot of teenage customers unaware there is life outside of GW, BF has a much higher preportion of hobby wise gamers who do know there are options outside of BF.

If an "official" FOW tourney includes free prize support from Battlefront, I have no problem with their stance. I'm not a big tourney player, though…

I have never gamed FOW (and have no desire, so I am neither a sock puppet nor potential customer) but I can understand thier policy. You can buy whatever products you want for you personal, club games, etc. But if it is their tournament then it is with thier rules. And they probably will feature photos on thier website and magazines, so they want the photos to be of their products. Which makes sense that they would want to PROMOTE their prodcuts. I don't think it is that big a deal myself.

As they say, they spend over a quarter millions USD organising the events. Perhaps there's something to it.
One should perhaps see at as part of the admission ticket.

That said, from what I hear, last years European grand finale was very poorly organised.

This only concerns tournaments that Battlefront physically runs, although it does look like they are trying to expand the number of events they are running.

The real key is whether they will try to force tournaments run by others into that mold.

Ed

I heard from a couple of stockists (and I pass this on as unqualified heresay) that FOW are putting pressure on retailers to sign up to their Premier Retailer programme (extra discount, advance products before anybody else, freebies, touranament hosting) in exchange for them dumping competing products…

All's fair in love and war I guess.

Sometimes, Im so happy I game in 20mm. ;)

Henrix wrote:

John, one thing that differs is that official tourneys give you ranking, which means you can compare it, and go to some sort of finals and such.

To be fair they have not said this battlefront Miniatures only policy applies to all "official tournaments", just to "events we run".

As I understand it there are official tournaments run by other people.

Ah, ok. That probably means it won't affect us over here – BF has never ran a tourney here themselves.

Still, it's a sad thing. The old attitude was one of the things that made me respect BF.

If the motivation for this is to recover losses incurred by running tournaments then they should have just stopped running them rather than this PR disaster.
Plenty of other people/clubs would run tournies for them.

I wonder if this will end up affecting Adepticon next year as I'm potentially going to be playing FoW next year.

To be fair they have not said this battlefront Miniatures only policy applies to all "official tournaments", just to "events we run".

As I understand it there are official tournaments run by other people.

If this is the case, then their stance makes perfect business sense. They are using the event as a marketing opportunity. It would be hard, if not impossible, to enforce this policy on other "official" events that they do not run.

Personal logo Who asked this joker Supporting Member of TMP 12 Jul 2012 5:42 a.m. PST

I am neither a GW or FoW player and have never played in an official tournament but am curious. How does an official tournament work? I've never played in one. GW for instance, simply don't allow non-GW figures in their shops. That covers a good portion of it. But what about FoW? BF does not actually have shops…at least not world wide. So, do they have a commissar from BF come to observe the "official" tournament? Speaking of "official" what makes the tournament official? What is different from that tournament vs a non-official tournament?

I believe that as far as BF are concerned this rule will apply to the events they run. These events differ in my experience from the other FoW tournaments in that they are both more expensive and significantly more poorly run than the vast majority of the other events. BF events also seem to have much worse umpiring than other events. All in all not going to BF events is not going to hurt me much.

There is an argument that perhaps non BF events might only be allowed to be included in the official rankings if they follow this rule in which case my events will not count for rankings (big fat hairy deal).

"The real key is whether they will try to force tournaments run by others into that mold."
Ed

As long as they refuse Prize support direct from BF it will be very hard ?
Does anyone know if you can copyright a base size ? As if not there will nothing stopping another rule system using the same size as FOW?
LES

Do these events have admission fees and if so are they enough to cover their costs?

Not a tourny player so it won't change anything for me. It does, however, change my opinion of Battle Front. I will now purchase more PSC and other makers figures rather than BF's "twice the price" vehicles. "The FOW hobby" Really? Really? Stupid mistake.

Wargamers are such cranks. I can't think of any other hobby where the participants object to companies trying to make money the way wargamers do.

What if I were to go to a Magic (card game) tournament with hand drawn cards I made myself using stats from real Magic cards.

It wouldn't affect play at all. Would you say the publishers of Magic would be out of line in saying, no we won't allow that?

I think they are locking the barn after the horse was stolen.

Do they SERIOUSLY exoect people to pay the equivlent of $13 USD per tank, when you can get tanks of comparable quality from Old Glory for $4 USD or $5 USD?

Not to mention replacing all the armies they already have.

These are not brainwashed Warhammer players they are dealing with, but mature and CHEAP historical gamers.

I'm all for it… as a non-GW (I mean FOW) player I see the secondary marketplace being flooded with the fanboys nicely painted but now unusable OG, PP, PSC, and Zvezda models.

Good for all of us outside the FOW community.

Since they have their pre-painted terrain line does this extend to that as well. (I certainly hope so!)

> Wargamers are such cranks. I can't think of any other hobby where the participants object to companies trying to make money the way wargamers do.

You need to get out more.

John the OFM wrote:

Do they SERIOUSLY exoect people to pay the equivlent of $13.00 USD USD per tank, when you can get tanks of comparable quality from Old Glory for $4.00 USD USD or $5.00 USD USD?

The fanboys do that already.

And it gets funnier. According to a Battlefront staffer posting on their forum "we get quite a lot of people saying they don't enjoy playing against non battlefront miniatures".

Wouldn't a better policy have been to start charging an entrance fee for their "official" tournaments and then waive the fee for those players that adhere to the 100% Battlefront model rule

As for the rationale that the cost of the tournaments is driving the decision that's a bit spurious – they run these tournaments to promote the product and generate content which I think they derive a lot of value from.

I think BF is making a big mistake – trying to ignore or block a strong competitor rarely works long term – It's better just to respond with a better product / experience.

Do they SERIOUSLY exoect people to pay the equivlent of $13 USD USD per tank, when you can get tanks of comparable quality from Old Glory for $4 USD USD or $5 USD USD?

Does GW or GF9 get people to pay $15 USD for a tiny container of flock? Sand? Paint?

They do indeed.

Their tournament, their rules. The M:TG example Bede19025 gave is spot on.

Old Glory sells to general public for the same price that retailers pay.
I stopped selling Old Glory years ago due to this and the fact their models were out of scale with Battlefront models and imo I feel the quality is poor and the reason why they are cheaper is due to the inferior quality.

I had a person come into my store and brag about how he saved 50 cents by buying his pack of Magic cards at a competitor who doesn't have in store gaming and starts entering my games room.
I asked where he was going and he told me he was going into my games room to play magic.
I told him that the games room was for CUSTOMERS and he play where he buys his cards.
He told me that they don't have a games room.
I told him that it was not my problem and the 50 cents he saved helped pay the rent on the games room and that he was NOT allowed to use the games room.

This rabbit is laughing. Since I play FOW in 20mm scale…No BF tourny for me!

Funny… when I stage large convention games on large 20'x6' setups I sometimes tend to draw more players then the entire FOW tourny held for two days. Recent games over the years had 18 players plus a standing galley. People like the larger scale and can "see" the models and terrain across the table. Photos can be taken from a distance…not extreme close up. As for the models… 20mm have model detail which BF could only dream on.

Basic, simple but massive on the tabletop games… designed for the younger set. I especially like father- son/daughter teams to play. FOW rules, when the basics are played, are easy to explain in 20 minutes… then let loose the players with dice and a handy small chart (stats etc) specific to their unit command.

I think the "FOW Hobby" part of the announcement actually proves the BF guys "are" proper waragmers at heart.

Only a true wargamer would be so totally lacking the social awareness to not realise that this single phrase would p-ss everyone off and undermine what would have otherwise been a quite well crafted and perfectly-reasonably-argued statement..

This is a direct response to the recent growth of competitors' lines. They must have seen more and more core players, maybe even friends, using other manufacturers' products. Rather than adapt their product, pricepoint, efficiency, or tourney structure, they chose an easy fix. This has to be compounded by the fact that they essentially gave away the 3rd edition rules. This will be interesting to follow.
BTW, LOVED the comment about hand drawn Magic cards!

It is Warhammer 1.941K!

The other thing I love about wargamers is that they're always so much smarter than companies like GW and BF (international businesses that gross in the millions) and so know that these stupid decisions will hurt their business.

Attila The Hun, I am sorry to disagree with you about the BF tanks, but they are the ones that are out of scale. I discovered this when the early war French tanks and some German equipment for Command Decision. I had BF stuff to compare with scale drawings of the German equipment. They did not match in length with the drawing, but then they were made to fit the BF bases.

Also, Old Glory has offered stores a higher discount on Command Decision products in order to compete with the Old Glory Army discount. This policy was put into effect when Old Glory ran it's 40% off sales prior to the army card. There have been a variety of game shops that too up the offer and moved nearly three times as much CD stock as before.

In regards to BF policies, again it is their tournaments. And, remember they now have several outlets in which to backup their product, including a magazine as well as several internet review, advertising and broadcasting sites.

I'll be a crank.

You idiots are spending 60+ dollars for a rulebook and then 40+ or more for theater specific army books.

This for a game set in WW2, a setting where there are literally hundreds of competing rules sets and a number that give much better games and don't require a stack of additional army books.

Just off the top of my head and sitting on my shelf behind me: Iron Ivan's Disposable Heroes. Arc of Fire. I Ain't Been Shot Mum! Blitzkrieg Commander.

Go a step further, pair the above with any of the wonderful Skirmish Campaign books and your games will be far more interesting than min/max x points vs. min/max x points.

And for the record, I do own some of the 1st edition Flames of War stuff but was savvy enough to see what was coming. (And really preferred sets that don't put artillery on the board and model suppression at least somewhat…)

chriskum wrote:

Go a step further, pair the above with any of the wonderful Skirmish Campaign books and your games will be far more interesting than min/max x points vs. min/max x points.

For you and also for me. But some people really like min/max points and army lists and prefer it to playing scenarios. For them building the best army possible from an army list is an important and enjoyable part of a game.

Not my personal taste but I think we have to acknowledge that they actually make up a significant section of the wargaming market.

It's part of what has made FoW successful.

Derek saith:

And it gets funnier. According to a Battlefront staffer posting on their forum "we get quite a lot of people saying they don't enjoy playing against non battlefront miniatures".

Would you like some more ice with that Kool-aid?

Yeah, it ruins MY gaming too.

This is a matter of principal.

I recognize BF's right to adopt such a policy, but until now I was able to applaud them for not doing so. It "was" a way in which one could point out that they actually differed from GW whom they were so commonly compared to.

I've attended three Official FoW Nationals in the past and used all BF models in all three. It was my choice to do so and in some small aspect a sign of my appreciation. Now I cannot choose to show that appreciation, I can only comply.

I run multiple FoW tournaments a year. Yes I can do so on my own without BF support well enough. But, if BF does not want to actively support me supporting their game system because I won't force all my participants to only use BF models, then I'm not sure I really want to even bother with running FoW events anymore.

Yes this is a big deal. It will have repercussions. I am the main driver of FoW in my area and my enthusiasm for actively supporting FoW has just taken a huge hit. To me this is nothing short of acknowledgement by BF that it cannot compete, based on overall value, with its miniatures and it now must resort to artificially means to limit the competition. It causes me to lose respect for them as a company since they now suddenly seem to feel that they cannot prevail in a truly open market.

I'll be a crank.

You idiots are spending 60+ dollars for a rulebook and then 40+ or more for theater specific army books.

This for a game set in WW2, a setting where there are literally hundreds of competing rules sets and a number that give much better games and don't require a stack of additional army books.

Just off the top of my head and sitting on my shelf behind me: Iron Ivan's Disposable Heroes. Arc of Fire. I Ain't Been Shot Mum! Blitzkrieg Commander.

Yes, you're a real money saving genius!

Now go find all those stores/clubs/tournaments where they're playing IABSM, etc.

You and the rest are missing the point that BF (and GW) through their investment in their business have created a large community of gamers so that you can more easily find opponents.

IABSM, BKC, etc. are fine rules if you're just playing in your little group. Try to walk into a games store for a pick up game of them.

"Attila The Hun, I am sorry to disagree with you abo"ut the BF tanks, but they are the ones that are out of scale.

Let me re-phrase that. They are not in the same scale as BF figs.
GHQ and CnC make micro-armour. I prefer the GHQ due to the extra detail, but am of the understanding that some of the details are out of scale so you can see them. Ie. the rivets on some of the early and mid war tanks.

I have found Old Glory difficult to deal with as a retailer. Compared to GW the BF FoW figs are reasonably priced. At least imo.

Graphic stolen!

What‘s the response been like on BF‘s own forum?

BF's server is burning hot…..with comment mutation into other polls and threads. Going beyond just the miniatures…. can you qualify with non-BF miniature for their national tourny's?, BF terrain vs home made or non-BF terrain allowed, comments about gaming/playing against non-BF models, using non-BF dice, ruler, templates, aircraft scale and models, smoke markers etc at BF events. How FLGS will handle competing manufacturers etc vs. BF.

Bad business move. Flames of War is on fire. Anybody call the fire department?

If I go to a FOW tournament will I have to use official FOW air?

Re: Adepticon FOW events

This will effect the LW Nationals. They are listed in the BF article.

How this will effect the EW and MW tournies (hosted by Game Korps)? We've no idea.

Alex Kulic wrote:

What‘s the response been like on BF‘s own forum?

At one end of the spectrum people are throwing their toys out the pram and announcing boycotts of all Battlefront products while at the other end they're painting their noses Battlefront brown, declaring their undying love for the company and saying the decision is 100% justified.

Can you claim IP on WW2?

Posted By John-Paul on 12 Jul 2012 10:04 PM
If I was a child and wanted to hold my breath I would not be letting people run around on our forum spouting such utter nonsense but deleting their posts and banning their accounts but that would be childish and serve no real purpose as I prefer to read what is said and then comment when I feel the need.

If Flames Of War is not creating our own IP I dont know what is and I know that Pete, Phil, Wayne, Evan and the guys would disagree as they have spent the last ten years of their lives dedicated to creating a hobby that is the heart of our business and completely unique. FOW is what drives the WWII 15mm gaming community and has done for many years and despite other manufacturers of models it was never any more than just another historical scale before FOW came along. If supporting your hobby involves you changing sides every time a business decision upsets you I would ask anybody who enjoyed their free copy of 3rd edition to speak up and say that we behaved like GW. Stand up and tell me that we are like any other company and I will give you five exmaples where we have proven time and again we are not. We are simply making a choice for our own events and even if you disagree you should respect us for the right to do so as just like giving away the rules free to over 50,000 people this year the same people made that choice so we cant be as bad as some of you would make out.

The problem is that the vocal few with more opinion than understanding would make it sound like this effects the entire hobby. You are wrong. Competitive gaming is a part of our hobby and we support it becasue we want to help that part grow but 90+% of all gamers are casual players who play in stores and at friends houses and never particpate in a tournament. These are the core of our business and despite some posters in this thread claiming to "know" this is a small issue effecting a gorup of players who however vocal are not the only gamers in the hobby.

Despite it being unwise to comment on this thread it is hard to read personal attacks on yourself and your team without feeling a little hurt and whilst I should not defend our choice more as it will just give some of you more fuel to bleat I stand by what I say. Try and look at the big picture, remember who we are, what we have done and how FOW got here and then just decide if that is your hobby or not as you shoud want to support your hobby and if this or any other decison we make has you changing your mind then we wish you all the best and thank you for your business but we will still be here doing our best and behaving the way we always have.

Someone better tell Ferdinand Porsche…

"
Derek H

12 Jul 2012 8:26 a.m. PST

John the OFM wrote:

Do they SERIOUSLY exoect people to pay the equivlent of $13.00 USD USD USD per tank, when you can get tanks of comparable quality from Old Glory for $4.00 USD USD USD or $5.00 USD USD USD?

The fanboys do that already.

And it gets funnier. According to a Battlefront staffer posting on their forum "we get quite a lot of people saying they don't enjoy playing against non battlefront miniatures"."

That is because they hate being reminded that they could have assembled their army for far less money.

I have always bought minis from a variety of sources for a variety of reasons, including those from Battlefront. But this decision is probably one of the most attrocious made in wargames history. From now on I will only purchase from their competitors, and I won't be the only one. I almost subscribed to Wargames Illustrated the other day too, glad I didn't get around to it. I was looking forward to their new buildings too, what a shame.

If the tournaments were not worth the cost, then they shouldn't have held them. Or found a way to do it cheaper than for a quarter of a million per year. But to try this lame attempt at pressuring players to buy their miniatures is folly. Miniatures gamers like to have something to complain about and Battlefront just gave them the nuclear bomb to use. I will be surprised if their business survives this decision.

I dont think the problem is about Tournaments per say

This is about BF stating/implying that THEY are the 15mm WW2 hobby.

I can understand GW or PP being uppy about their IP, but a historical company doing so? Seems like madness and reeks of arrogance

The hobby is wargaming, FoW is merely a set of rules. BF really do need to develop some perspective on this.

"FOW is what drives the WWII 15mm gaming community and has done for many years and despite other manufacturers of models it was never any more than just another historical scale before FOW came along."

Bwaa ha ha ha ha ha! Yeah cos Airfix, Italeri, Matchbox and countless others made no money on selling kits and soldiers to wargamers…. Battle front invented the FoW gaming community – that's all.