"Battlefront Miniatures only" Topic

For me, it was not their decision (I don't actively play FOW), but rather their attitude and arrogant execution of it. Many of the earlier posters have already pointed it out: 15mm world war II was not invented by them, they do not own the genre, and I do not "owe" them anything for them for either of us (BF or I) willingly participating in commerce. As we all know (but do not always remember) you vote with your money (Dollar, Euro, Pound, Looney, etc.) everytime you spend it. I now choose not to vote for BF/FOW.

David

Let me say that Truscott Trotter will be missed, assuming I don't just follow suit. Losing him was a kick in the teeth for those interested in the historical accuracy of Soviet forces in Flames (such as was possible anyway).

The action BF has taken is largely symbolic--it will have no impact on 99% of the games played--but its a HUGE mistake. Previously BF was always willing to stand up and match any competitor on quality, if not on price, and that's how they made their sales.

Being willing to allow any miniature to their events (which are mostly run by clubs anyway, by the way--including the big US East Coast ones'), was a sign on confidence, and also good faith.

Pulling this kind of BS after 10 years of flatly stating that they wouldn't, then being so arrogant and honestly defensive and "shocked" at the reaction is just beneath them.

My future WWII purchases are going to look at PSC first, and BF only second. And quite frankly they need to improve their releases to keep me anyway--EW is an unplayable tankfest, and LW is picking up rather too many game-altering special rules. One doesn't like to see 20" pre-game moves when your opponent starts 16" from your front lines, yet that is what they have put in there.

Maybe I need to take a step back or something, but losing TT was a significant blow to the FOW community. :-(

Shan

For me, it was not their decision (I don't actively play FOW), but rather their attitude and arrogant execution of it.

Seems to be a common reason for people commenting negatively towards them. I would have to agree. The whole 'We created this hobby' and 'FoW IS the hobby' attitude is sickening. I guess they couldn't possibly have played any other games prior to FoW since there was nothing prior to FoW according to them. Bunch of idiots sounds like to me.

I am so annoyed I might just make a 15mm plastic army ..
I am a Rapid-fire 20mm player by choice..a choice that looks more pleasant the more I think about it…
link

If they had used 12mm or 18mm scale instead of 15mm they could avoided all of this.

Next step?

Invade Poland if I am not mistaken……..

It's been a few years since Geography Class but I'm pretty sure Poland isn't New Zealand adjacent. So, that would be a mighty impressive invasion plan. I suspect the first wave will be sheep since there are more Poles than New Zealanders and more NZ sheep than either.

Shan thanks for the kind words – I shall of course be on this forum and WWPD and will continue to share any gems I dig up on historical forces especially my beloved Soviets
Not to mention discussing tactics, modelling etc

I have to say I was about to post an excerpt from John Matthews latest bomb but I decided to save the time its more of the same.

Instead I will urge everyone to continue to enjoy FOW in their own way and please support your local independent tourny if comps are your thing.

Clearly, they've tried to model themselves on the GW marketing/pricing plan, which worked for some time, until other decent competitors entered the 15mm WWII arena.

Clearly, this year has been a watershed, with all of the new, high quality, plastic vehicles and troops being released.

Now, there are a number of them, with decent, if not better minis, priced for far less, and BF is in a real quandry.

Sadly, their new policy has probably just made the hole a lot deeper.

GW's minis are pretty unique, so hard to mimic/replace, permitting them to keep their pricing abnormally high.

WWII vehicles are not, since they cannot be protected from IP infringement, like most of GW's unique sculpts can.

I also find it interesting that there is no argument over how poor BF's new infantry sculpts are, compared to what they used to produce in the past.

What I find most sad, is that such a precipitous decline in infantry product quality was permitted by such a major player in the 15mm scale, WWII marketplace.

In my opinion, there is really no excuse for that, other than sheer laziness, or a total lack of oversight.

I mean, how hard can it be to produce more production molds from the original masters of the minis that were once of excellent quality?

The silence on that subject is deafening……

I must admit, there is no rage like a geek rage.

At Historicon I will have to decide if I should buy the Lexus or the Kia…oops, I mean the BF or PSC.

First they came for the traders and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trader.

Then they came for the tournement players,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a tournement player.

Then they came for the Club players,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a club player.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

NB Pleasethis is not meant as a disrespect to anyone of the Jewish faith

For me, the ironic thing is how many times I have praised Battlefront for their wise PR decision to NOT have this policy.

It just seemed to be common sense. There are already tons of 15mm WW2 manufacturers out there, and NOBODY holds a copyright on WWII model design.

It's hubris. Nothing else describes it. Battlefront picked a 100% guaranteed way to alienate the majority of their tournament players.

"Question though, anyone know how many have disenrolled as well?"
ATM the numbers are going up !! Must be a lot of "sock puppets" coming out ?
LES

It should make for a rather lively commentary at the Historicon tournament.

Back in my WRG tournament days, we had "I got a letter from Phil" Thursday night rules ammendment seminars. Do BF FoW tournaments have the equivalent?
It would be interesting to poll the Historicin Nationals players, and see how many will come back next year.
Like I said,we old fart historical players are CHEAP bastards.

Hmmmmm…..

first the stock-market bubble,

then the housing bubble,

and now,

we give you the overpriced historical miniatures bubble…..

""Question though, anyone know how many have disenrolled as well?"
ATM the numbers are going up !! Must be a lot of "sock puppets" coming out ?
LES"
Yeah, It seems a lot of the people who want to express their opinion without burning bridges in case FOW comes to their senses and quits trying to run their hobby into the ground are using sock puppets to express themselves.
I'm not too worried about what they think of me after, well they have already shown what they think of me and my audacity to have figures Battlefront doesn't even make on the battlefield.

If they had used 12mm or 18mm scale instead of 15mm they could avoided all of this.

If they had used an "off" scale or not had an open miniatures approach they would have never achieved the success they are now jeopardizing. They needed folks to start playing FoW with their existing 15mm (1/100th) collections to get the ball rolling. Now I guess they feel they don't need the community at large and can rely solely on the legions of fans they feel they have raised.

Hahahaha …whats all this talk about boycotting ?… this the olympics ? If BF want to shoot themselves in the foot, it means we should as well ?
Stuff that !! I like a lot of what they do, lots of good information on their web site, great scenarios etc take out of it what you want , and leave the rest. I still intend to enjoy their offerings, the new rule book is great for example…..but this new BF mini's only thing goes into the "leave" catagory. Don't play in their tournaments.

I don't understand why everyone is getting so bent out of shape about this. I'll admit, this new requirement to use BF miniatures in official FoW tournaments revolts against our basic value of freedom of choice, but you can still use your PSC or 15mm figures from other manufacturers in other settings. Most of us don't play in tournaments anyway.

I know I know, for many of you it's a matter of 'principle,' but look at it from their perspective. Other manufacturers like PSC are making big profits and taking a huge chunk out of BF's potential market share by taking advantage of what BF painstakingly built successfully for over a period of 10 years. Why should they allow these companies to benefit from 'their hobby'? And let's face it, FoW has grown so large that, like WH and WH40K, it has reached proprietary 'hobby' status. People have been playing WWII games with other rules using 15mm figures for a long time, but never in the numbers or level of popularity we've seen since BF and FoW came along.

FoW is 'their hobby.' You can use your PSC or other miniatures in a non-FoW tournament setting or with other 15mm (or any other scale) WWII rule systems.

Just sayin'

Guess thats the difference 28mm Fanatik – some of us for some strange reason thinks its OUR hobby.

I also guess until BF start paying me to play it instead of the other way round, it will remain MY hobby in my mind
just sayin

PSI have been in business for 23 years and the first thing I learned was NEVER, EVER treat you customers with contempt

Fair enough Truscott,

But still, it seems unfair that other companies are taking advantage of the success BF built for over 10 years by making products cheaper and cutting into their profits. Then again, I guess that's their own fault for not being able to find cheaper and better ways to make their products.

BTW I have never played FoW, since I solely play in 28mm as my moniker implies.

I think this is a grand opportunity to let the hidden subversive in all of us, free rein. I think all of my BF infantry going forward will have single FiB figure on every stand. I'd love to see some Gestapo Ranger pick that up.

First world problems.

Gestapo Ranger

I think that's the next codex. There were only ever 100 in service, but they'll be immortalized for their harsh struggle against the massive hordes of soviets in their Panzer VIII Lion super heavy tanks. I believe their HQ section was made from a lone P1000 Ratte.

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…

TMP link

TMP link

My blog has some more info lurking on it;

ww20mm.blogspot.ie

And over on The Guild we already have a room set up for it as we have been playtesting it and Warwick is one of our members;

guildwargamers.com

TT please keep posting John Matthews PR gems. They‘re genius.

John Matthews the Mrs Brown of BF
youtu.be/FdSaWW9vuow

For me the problem is the previous statements that indicated that this woul not be the case – their tournament playing customers relied on their representationa when making purchase decisions

Purchase decisions that might now need to be replaced to continue playing in official tournaments…

And for the record I am not a tournament player and all my figs are BF…

The new rule is made worse by it being a 180 than if they had simply been silent on the topic previously…

"But still, it seems unfair that other companies are taking advantage of the success BF built for over 10 years by making products cheaper and cutting into their profits."

There is nothing unfair about providing an economic service, especially if you provided the base market that fow exploited in the first place.(Quality castings, QRF, Peter pig and command decision?)

"Then again, I guess that's their own fault for not being able to find cheaper and better ways to make their products."

I think they are well down the line exploring it, just not at the timescales that will help them before October.

Once the 'rangers' are out 'teen trending' and the open fire box sets are the next 'pokemon', Battlefront will get back onto an even keel if they arent actually there already.

This bruhaha will not have any effect on 90% of their customer base nor their purchasing choices. It probably does provide some high levels of amusement.

I had forgotten how BF loyal some of their fans are with the All my stuff is BF statements running all over the BF site.

I wonder if they EVER did a customer survey to see how much of their client base is independant from FOW. If they did, I know why they kept it quiet! It is way below what they would like people to beleive. Poll suggestion?

it seems unfair that other companies are taking advantage of the success BF built for over 10 years by making products cheaper and cutting into their profits.

It seems unfair that Ford bastard took advantage of the success the horse carriage makers had in getting Americans to like riding vice walking to cut into their market share with a better product.

In fact it is scrupulously fair since all participants in the market are competing on equal terms for the custom of the same group of people based on quality and price. What isn't fair is protectionism where one participant attempts to lock others out of the market to protect its own market share. Its not fair to other companies since they are denied access to potential customers, its not fair to customers since they are unable to buy the goods they want to and its unfair to the participant seeking to protect itself from competition since what they are really protecting themselves from is the need to innovate and provide the best goods at the best price so that, if the protectionist policy gets reversed at some future point, they find themselves in a highly noncompetitive state even more at risk from the market forces they attempted to manipulate in the first place. You can see this happen every time a state-protected industry or monopoly loses its priviledged position.

All a but highfalutin for a discussion about toy soldiers but the principle is the same.

I joined the FoW forum to see what the score was over there. Someone did, indeed, claim that they didn't like seeing non-BF models in tournaments. The mind boggles.

Yes John Matthews – Global Manager of BF claimed many people said that to him but then retracted and admitted it was only his opinion and his opponent looked 'smug' about it
First time I have heard looking smug was an offence – if so half the parliment should be convicted
Typical of BF's definition of truth – just like the we will never ban non BF products statement made repeatedly on public forums by John-Paul

Will this mean I can't now use my BF tanks to play PBI ?

Tim go for it mate be a pirate!

Its to be hoped that BF bring out some food and a drink soon, what else are we all going have at the tourneys until they do !!!

Looks like BF have closed their thread. Good job we still have other forums to express ourselves on where the long arm of BF cannot reach!
I find it amazing they let it get this far guess that is what hubris is all about

"I believe their HQ section was made from a lone P1000 Ratte."

Cant use that only FiB make that.

Well, I'd like to thank Battlefront for providing such fine amusement over the last 24 hours. Especially their Global Manager openly lying on their forums to their customers. Sheer brilliance.

"Will this mean I can't now use my BF tanks to play PBI?"

…I'm sure Martin will not tell on you!…but I would read the new BF small print just to make sure.

new products may have this type of clause added.

"use of this product in unofficial games ouside the scope of Flames of War invalidates the warranty, all consumer rights and grants sacrificial rites to your first born."

"you may also be subject to Ranger (TM) raids where the product may be confiscated and a marketing surcharge applied"

"enjoy this product responsibly!…Best served neat with no mixers"

sometimes you have to look on the funny side eh guys?

After my initial nerdrage, I'm becoming ambivalent.

1. I have no intention of ever playing in a FoW tournament.
2. If I did, I'd probably abide by the ruling. The only non-BF stuff I have so far are my T26s and objectives.
3. How will BF enforce it? For stuff like Forged in Battle, with integral vehicle bases, it's easy to spot, but someone mixing infantry from another manufacturer to vary the poses? You'd have to get down to tabletop level.
4. A BF tournament is bound to cost more to put on. BF have staff and transportation costs, which club run events will not have as they rely on volunteers paid in burgers and pop.
5. Their house, their rules.
6. Plenty of other events around. Look at the 40k tournament scene. 90%+ unnofficial, and thriving because of it.

Looks like BF have closed their thread.

I'm not sure that's a good thing. Makes them look like they can't handle the truth. JP did mention earlier how un-childish he was being by letting the discussion continue there…but that was on page 6 or 7, guess hitting 30 pages or so in 24 hours was a bittoo much to bear.

On the other hand, maybe it could be a good thing, maybe something like "we got the message and we will reconsider?" Too wishful on my part perhaps.

"Too wishful on my part perhaps."

nope…I would suspect that they will backtrack to making it volentary and obviously that makes the pressure on the customer who will get some mild reaction resulting in peer pressure tutting and frowning.

Closed the thread? It's still there…

Yeah, the thread is still going strong. 27 pages currently.

Looks like BF have closed their thread.

There has only been 1 thread locked,and that only had 3 posts.
LES

I haven't played in a tournament in years and had no plans to. But I'm rather curious about how they plan to enforce this rule? My FoW armies are all a mix of BF and non-BF minis. Are they going to examine each and every miniature of each army entered in a tournament to make sure there aren't any non-BF minis hiding under coats of paint? Or are they going to depend on the players to rat-out their opponents during the course of the games? What fun THAT will be! :)

BF/FoW spent 250K on running and sponsoring events:

Speaking for myself…I have never played at a LGS or HMGS con Tournament or a even FoW game event like Budapest, and NOT bought at least one FoW product in return from the LGS or dealers hall! I am sure this goes for the majority of participants? Part of advertising, in which I believe a tournament is consider, is spending money to make MORE money

SFC Retired

"Too wishful on my part perhaps."
nope…I would suspect that they will backtrack to making it volentary and obviously that makes the pressure on the customer who will get some mild reaction resulting in peer pressure tutting and frowning.

As much as I'm a fan of lower cost options, especially for others, and diversity if they did this I'd go out of my way to buy their product and support them. I'd even voluntarily replace my Peter Pig EW French Infantry with those horrible ones BF offers.

Make it a choice and I'm all in, get all GW like on this issue…don't count on my support.

But alas, others say they thread's not locked so I guess we've not hit that trigger point yet. Keep trying fellas!!!

Or are they going to depend on the players to rat-out their opponents during the course of the games? What fun THAT will be! :)

Maybe that explains why they have abandoned Sportsmanship scores in scoring.
TMP link

Or, maybe they will go back to the Pre-tournament Thursday night seminars, where the organizers can check under the hood to make sure there are only resin tank hulls and turrets.

VonBurge wrote:

I'd even voluntarily replace my Peter Pig EW French Infantry with those horrible ones BF offers.

That would be very strange behaviour. Spend a lot of money to replace perfectly good toys with worse ones.

Takes all sorts I guess.

Perhaps BF should just make better models cheaper?

I still think most of their vehicles are pretty good, though over priced. But they can not compete with the latest offerings from plastic soldier company.

The PSC panthers are gorgeous and far cheaper than BF. But if PSC can do it why can't BF turn out better quality at lower prices?

BF Infantry though are rubbish. I buy peter pig or the lovely forged in battle infantry over BF everytime.

FIB infantry are better and cheaper than BF.
PSC vehicles are better and cheaper than BF.

Apparently if you can't beat them…. BAN them is the only strategy left.

I hope and think BF will suffer badly for this arrogance, but time will tell.

Andy