"Battlefront Miniatures only" Topic

They seem to think a lot of themselves, don't they?

The hobby is wargaming, FoW is merely a set of rules

To be fair, the "hobby" is the community they've created that all play the same game with the same rules.

That the rules happen to be for a game set in a historical period doesn't mean that the game isn't as distinct as Magic the Gathering or GW, or PP. Or that BF hasn't spent a lot of money promoting their game, maintaining their web presence, branding their product.

The same way McDonald's brands their product although Wendy's, Burger King, etc. also sell hamburgers.

Those who are offended by their claim that there is a FOW hobby really ought to grow up.

Anyone care go on the over/under on how many posts this thread may go?

Eric

FoW has brought a new generation into the WWII hobby.
I've carried Old Glory 15mm and GHQ and CnC micro-armour in the past and it was mostly old guys playing it.

FoW has brought a new generation into the WWII hobby.

Yes they did that. Hats off to them, but they did so while having a very liberal policy on other manufacture model use. That's one of the things that drew me to BF/FoW. It's gone now.

"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"

So when are they going to tm the swastika???

't was a crappy night on the telly, thank god for BF starting another nice discussion to enjoy :-)

And here I was thinking self-mutilation (aka shooting in your own foot) was a court martialable? offense… Mediiiiic!

That explains why they have started a "Ranger" program. So they can have a bunch of FoW informers run around and spy on all the FoW tournaments and make sure they are all following the rule and report back on them to HQ

Oh and @ Bede, I game with a couple of different goups and can get in on a game of IABSM anytime I want.

So what exactly people getting their spokes all bent up about? They have a listing of sanctioned events that "they" run. The only event I see there that anyone in my area would be affected by is the one at Historicon. There are something like 2 dozen events listed.

All other events that are not registered are not ones that they run. Bring what you like to those. *shrug* Folks like me that don't play tournaments, we are completely unaffected by this announcement.

So what exactly people getting their spokes all bent up about?

Principles.

So do the BF minis have to be painted only with BF paint?

and terrain, now that BF is getting deep into that field…dice…markers…BF official ruler?

This just keep mutating into other regions….burning past 32 pages of comments.

The FOW "BF Only" issue thread just asked the question should HMGS-East allow "restrictive manufacturer tourney's" at the Historicon such as the US Nationals with this new BF ruling. Sort of against the HMGS chapter general principles, promotion of the hobby and how other manufacturers do support the hobby.

"FOW dice and token police coming soon to a tourny near you……"

I'm surprised that people are surprised.

As for the outrage re the 'FoW Hobby (tm)'; they've been describing it as 'the FoW hobby' since FoW started and many have challenged this breathtaking piece of arrogance from the outset.

Lets see, this will affect a few thousand people who play a set of rules I don't. I used to buy their vehicles 10 years ago when they were good value for money, but never liked the blobs they call infantry. Hmmmm, I'm not bothered to be honest, but watching a train wreck on the Internet is always entertaining.

They are seeking to control the market. They are not interested in competing. I believe that economists call this a monopolistic behavior.

Scott asked above "how soon before they require FoW paint…I laughed until it the question kicked in? Just a matter of time?

SFC Retired

What Princeps said. Except for buying their vehicles bit…

Eric

Oh and @ Bede, I game with a couple of different goups and can get in on a game of IABSM anytime I want.

Great. You're one example in one place. Are you seriously comparing the FOW community with the community that plays IABSM?

And by the way, I own IABSM and prefer it to FOW.

They are seeking to control the market. They are not interested in competing. I believe that economists call this a monopolistic behavior.

Does that mean that when Pepsi sponsors a sporting event and insists that only Pepsi be served at the event it's sponsored it'screated a monopoly?

Of course not, Coke can sponsor another sporting event.

You must be from the EU.

They stated the reality in their post…it is a business.

There are two types of providers in the wargaming industry, whether they are rules designers, miniatures manufacturers, or vendors.

TYPE ONE: THE PURIST: The first type does it for the love of the game and doesn't care about making money. They write rules to suit their tastes, share with their friends, and post them online as a download. If they're really dedicated, they may even have them printed up professionally hoping to break even on the costs. We all like to believe this is us. We all believe that if you're in it for profit, you are an evil and vile man. But the reality is that those who don't make a profit from their services and products are soon out of business. The hobby would be stuck in the 1960s (when I began playing) with a limited variety of miniatures and rules; you wouldn't have complete lines of miniatures, and you wouldn't have the rules support we have today from most games designers. It takes money to develop molds, provide additional figure types, and keep them in stock to satisfy today's customer who expects access to a wide variety of figure types with fast delivery – oh, and inexpensive figures.

TYPE TWO: THE BUSINESSMAN: The other type is trying to make a living off the hobby. Big or small they're producing or selling products from which they hope to make enough money to pay the rent, buy food, and support their families. Some are successful, some are not. They endure all kinds of competition for our hobby dollar while putting up with punters who criticize continuously some aspect of what they're doing.

Witness the demise of the hobby shop. If you have a local hobby shop, how many of you who are complaining about Battlefront still purchase your models online because the selection and price are better? The reality is that hobby shops go out of business because we don't support them AND because they are not profitable. Although most hobby shop owners are gamers themselves, and may have gone into the business because of a love of the hobby, they still have to make dirty, filthy money.

Battlefront is making its choice because it is a business. It's making its decisions in order to stay in business. It provides a huge range of figures and models, and it provides some of the best online support for its products and related history. This costs money.

If their decision to allow only BF models is successful, it is a good business decision. If sales tank because of this, it is a bad business decision. But in the end, we only enjoy the variety of rules and miniatures available on the market today because someone is willing to put up their resources to provide us with products and services from which they expect to make money, stay in business, and provide for their families and employees. Reality.

Been 12 hours at least since this "BF Only" ruling crawled out from the covers. Where is the TMP Poll question…..?

BF – Good business move?
BF – Bad business move?
Riot brewing with BF approved/disapproved pitchforks?
BF just self flamed their own war?
This is TMP… who cares? (for the null voters)

Pick any two…. just to mess up any valuable statistics.

Next will be the video of BF miniatures burning… of course in good taste please.

I don't play in their tournaments, so am beyond their ability to control what I purchase.

Have I mentioned that their new infantry sculpts are absolutely horrendous lately?

They had some of the best ones, 15 – 20 years ago, so a shame they aren't still producing those. Can't understand why really.

This seems a bad PR move, but I can understand their need to try to take some action to protect a no doubt quickly eroding market share for 15mm minis.

There are lots of new vehicles, from various manufacturers, that are as good as, if not better than their products, being sold for far less.

I'll get my pitchforks from PSC!

Though I do think it would be valid for HMGS to prohibit tournaments that limit players in their choice of models.

The latest PR triumph for BF –

I'm going to refute some statements here but I'm sure that i will be told how wrong I am and how this is the end etc etc.

1. This is NOT a GW move! What would be a GW moved would be to cancel all GW run tournaments and the write 2 sets of rules that are very tournament/competitive unfriendly, close the official forum and bury my head in the sand. oh wait that's exactly what they did do! or you could try the other competitive system Privateer , good luck with using other models there at any and all events!

2. It's at our tournaments. if a TO wants his own regulations then choose them we will still offer support and prizes if asked. ( though to all you TO'S I'm going to run a quick scenario by you. At your tournament can i pay my mate Dave 60% and you 0% of the entry fee to come play at your event? i bet the answer is no and for exactly the same reason as we would like you to use our stuff you have bills to pay and what does Dave do for you with running this event)

3. This point I'm sure will be disbelieved by the vehement, we get quite a lot of people saying they don't enjoy playing against non battlefront miniatures and would love a way to mark opponents down for having them but feel they would be ridiculed, marked down themselves, called unsporting, labelled FANBOY so they keep quite just put up with it. However the players who are using other minis are making someone else's hobby less enjoyable, there are 2 sides always.

4. models we don't produce. i don't know yet. as for JU 88'S is there a list where you actually pay the points for these?

5. My last bit would be to say no one has yet given the reasons why we should allow other miniatures. some have given vague its helps get people into the hobby but nothing real ( i hate the idea is not going to cut it here) I suppose i would like conclude here by asking you to take a deep breath and ask yourself "if you owned a game company where your sole income came from, and people started doing to you what some of you are doing what would you do?"

sadly i expect i wont be surprised by the response's to my post

JM

And he got called out for #3 by several of us almost immediately. Way to throw gasoline on the fire…

Ed

P.S. Can anyone point me to summary of what the new PSC rules are going to be like? Software can change, hardware is eternal…

Truscott

1) You built your business because 15mm WWII was an existing scale with plenty of models available and you were able to leverage that into your current, dominate market position. Now instead of competing based on price and quality of your models you want to use your market position to avoid competition. GW move period.

2) This is an old argument, the first version was "It's my ball I'll take it home if you don't let me win." Hopefully most gamers will respond the way we did with that kid. Enjoy playing by yourself.

3. Proof that fanboys are idiots. This is the most asinine thing I've heard in a while. Even more asinine is that you'd repeat it and offer it up here. Who the hell wants to game with these munchkins?

4. You got any Pz-35ts??? Models you don't produce = long list. Models you do produce. Tigers. Guess what? So does everyone else. Some are better than yours. It's a hobby and hobbies want the best toys that fit their vision. It's clear that doesn't fit your business model. Tough.

5. You should allow other miniatures because the tournaments encourage people to invest in your rules, your system, your accessories and offer a venue to showcase and sell your products. If you can't turn that homefield advantage into $ than there are other more severe problems with your business model. Namely, your current prices are unsustainable as evident by the vastly cheaper and in most cases higher quality competition.

Kick, scream, moan all you want. The writing is on the wall. You need to expect shrinking profits in the miniatures aspect of your business and strive to protect the actual IP part of the business the rules system and various publications. This is what the tournaments do.

Battlegroup Kursk is around the corner. You're lucky as hell that GW pulled the plug on Battlegroup Normandie.

And if you're not surprised by the response to this move and to your post and yet persist in taking the actions you're taking than you deserve all that is slowly going to unfold.

And finally, I'm a bit of an old timer. I've watched lots of rules and games come and go. There is not "Flames of War Hobby." You don't have your own stores around the world. You don't have a unique IP. You are not, GW, with a vertically integrated product.

chriskrum,

I those comments are not Truscott Trotter's, they are John Matthews the lead guy at BF USA HQ.

TT was just sharing those comments from the BF forum with us on this forum.

Trust me TT, like you, is totally against this new policy.

Oops, sorry Truscott.

I didn't catch that. I'm not on the BF forum. I thought someone had come over here from there to post that list of utter nonsense.

It's clear that something is seriously broken inside BF. I imagine they've taken a hit in their miniature sales and are getting a bit desperate. I can understand that they want to avoid layoffs and cutbacks, but the reality is that they're selling their products for three times what their competitors are (if not more). Tinkering with their tournament rules isn't going to lead to a gigantic boost in the sale of their models--not with such a large price gap. It could(I'd say it has)piss off their fan base. It's much easier to destroy a brand than it is to build one.

"They did so while having a very liberal policy on other manufacture model use. That's one of the things that drew me to BF/FoW. It's gone now".

That aspect of the hobby is still there.
Most independent retailers allow you to use the figs from other manufacturers. Even in tournaments, but if you want to participate in BF sponsored events it is only fair to use their figs unless they don't make figs for your tournament legal army.

I suppose the independents will change as well due the ease of stocking a store BF figs and difficulty of stocking from other manufacturers.

I totally agree. I've been pretty much been a great fan and promoter of FoW for years… and now? Maybe not so much as one of the aspects of BF that I really respected has been yanked away. So yeah, count me in the "pissed-off" fan base pool…maybe former fan base pool.

No worries chriskrum – I was reposting too quickly I was so gobsmacked
and I am after 5 years and 11,000+ posts no longer on the BF forums either!
I get the funniest/saddest bits relayed to me by wargaming mates who still are

I am really disappointed by this announcement.

Still, on the bright side, presumably BF will be loaning, free of charge, the BF armies for the players to use in these tourneys, right?

Might have to give the PSC Kursk rules a closer look…..

poor Truscot,…. He was only posting the latest PR disaster from battlefronts self imploding staff.

Isn't the problem here that battlefront's people have actually beleived their own hype?

They are the main leader in the market with the biggest market share. but the main competition is the lead casters like old glory, QRF and Peter pig. They have an advantage over BF in that for all of those manufacturers, the ww2 ranges are only 1 range in a couple of dozen they produce. Bizarely, the biggest company sales is the niche market supplier..Battlefront with all their eggs in one ww2 basket,

When the plastic tanks comes along, it impacts on all of them, but impacts the least on the ones with the fewest vehicles (peter pig?) and the ones with the widest ranges (OG/QRF)……but it devistates the main market share of the largest most expensive manufacturer.

I would esimate that battlefront have probabley been denied sales equalling the sales to date of PSC's vehicles. Every 16 pound box denied BF of a 30 pounds box sale…more if blisters. Yet PSC are not in themselves reliant upon the 15mm market as they ensured scale diversity and serving the 1/72nd market too.

Perhaps this is just one of the many difficult decisions that Battlefront managment are facing. trying to preserve sales and probably looking at some serious downsizing, in sales volume or sales price or both. maybe they shouldn't be so badly treated over this.

we get quite a lot of people saying they don't enjoy playing against non battlefront miniatures

Possibly because they think its so unfair they paid out a whole load more for their army than their opponents? Yes definitely 'cheating' using them plastic tanks! :-)

A wise man once told me of the danger of step changes to your core business, the trick is to make any major change not enough to alienate your existing players and sufficient enough to attract new players.

Very true kevan. A big problem for someone like BF is that they expanded into a large state, but suddenly forget that others can quickly fill in the gaps with newer inexpensive products. I would think that as of late their primary sales may have been through books instead of their models (feel free to correct me) which might not work out financially with their kind of business. Capitalism can be a wonderful thing, until it bites you in the back

IF Battlefront had not overpriced their models so much to begin with, there would not have been the motive for PSC to invest massive resources to enter the market.

BF response to this so far has been to raise their prices even further, the $70 USD Panthers and outrageous costs for the heroes vehicles. They have completely misread the gaming market, and went the wrong direction when faced with competition. It reminds me of a government move, not enough people are choosing to ride the bus line to make it profitable so we have to raise the prices, which only makes their product less competitive.

But this move also has to be seen in conjunction with their Rangers program, where they are going to provide support to the clubs and groups that are running tourneys. Inevitably, the BF only rule will expand to those tourney's too and eliminate more and more locations where people can play.

Exactly my point Airborne. People are asying well don't worry just play at a non official comp – well make the most of it because of BF get their wa there won't be any in a years time
After all the logic of making just a handful of cpomps BF only does not make sense it cannot possibly increase theier sales significantly. However, if you make most of the comps BF only, well then that may impact on their sales

On a personal note I really resent John Matthews (BF Global Manager – JM above in the post I quoted) implication that me bringing non BF models to a comp is going to 'impact on my opponents 'enjoyment.
Really?
How immature is that?

Interesting discussion of the supposed pros and cons. I don't play FoW but I have to say that I've miniatures gamed WWII in various forms for nearly 40 years. I don't get how they invented it? I take that as another 'we're the greatest because we say so' statement. In that case I'm glad I've never purchased any of their product and I'll be sure I never do.

"I would think that as of late their primary sales may have been through books instead of their models (feel free to correct me)"

The guys I know who sell product say that the PSC stuff flies off the shelves and fow blister sales are steady, especially infantry and guns…platoon boxes not so much and that early war was a bit of a disaster for sales.

that is combined bricks mortar, internet and painting service.

"Capitalism can be a wonderful thing, until it bites you in the back" ….which is why I am beginning to give BF the benefit of the doubt. What can seem like a stupid decision from outside a company could in fact be a very well thought through decision on doing everyhing possible protecting employment of staff.

Well truscott, I could see someone not enjoying the fact that they paid three times market value for their army just to watch it get its butt kicked. Insult to injury and all that.

Well Airborne if that's all it takes to throw them off their game then I am all for it! LOL

BTW I believe you cwn still play with unpainted BF minis at an officlal BF tourny?

In a hypothetical situation, what if I were to enter a tournament and had put some extra gubbins from another company on my Cromwell tank (extra fuel or whatever) could I still use it?
What if my tank had come with a badly damaged turret but I forgot to send it back and so replaced it with another companies turret (just the turret mind you) could I still use that?
And of course, BF does not produce this model can I use a different companies model instead or does it mean that I cant use all of their points lists?

I can't think of another group of gamers on the planet that presently deserve to be screwed more than the FoW tournement crowd.

Hump it! HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHHAHHAHAHAHA!

There is that. Something good has got to come out of all this.

"No worries chriskrum – I was reposting too quickly I was so gobsmacked"
Is that about the cricket or FOW ?

"I am after 5 years and 11,000+ posts no longer on the BF forums either!"

Well if you didn't keep trying to post pics of Miss AH,you would have more posts? Mind you so would if i stopped trying to post pics of Miss C.Charms ?

"I get the funniest/saddest bits relayed to me by wargaming mates who still are"
Sorry bud don't do sad,so you will get funny,odd thing most of them will be by me!!
LES

I just disenrolled on their forum. I wasn't a kingpin, so not their biggest loss I'm sure. Question though, anyone know how many have disenrolled as well?

David

It was easy only took 2 secs

I honestly don't get some of the reaction here.
If a company is sponsoring the event then by all means they are certainly justified in ruling that only their miniatures be used. If that alienates some then that's the risk the company takes. It hopefully should not trickle down past that to friend that game or the local club or FGLS leagues etc. They cannot take away your miniatures and melt them. You will not be taken into the alley behind the FGLS and diced to death.

I still like Epic from GW and use the minis with the rules that are available and hope to use them with other games. So far nobody from GW has fast roped from a Thunderhawk, squished my minis and taken me behind my shed to be diced to death.

David

well, the members on the bf forum are quite p**sed about this. i don't play the game anymore. but its too much like warhammer 40k for me.