"Battlefront Miniatures only" Topic

Warhammer and Warhammer 40K tourney footprints grew when GW got OUT of the tourney biz – now there are more people involved, more third-party minis/bitz, and better organization. Independent tourney orgs really helped the "GW Hobby" thrive.

BF is going in the exact opposite direction, and it is too late to close the barn door now. Best case? BF backs off and lets the tourneys continue as-is. Worst case? Indy tourneys grow with their own rankings and just ignore BF tourney orgs entirely. BF really misjudged the market and hobby, and really shouldn't try to involve themselves too closely with the tourney organization.

My 2-cents…

Good grief at QRF….

10 chaffees for £30.00 GBP quid!

10 sherman for £30.00 GBP quid!

Thats a gauntlet just hit the floor!

but char B's …Churchills!! Comets!!!!!!

lead at plastics price!

Good job QRF! You're forcing me to take a harder look at your models! ;)

How do these deals come through Scale Creep in the US?

Any likelihood of FV-432s being in the multipack deal…?

How do these deals come through Scale Creep in the US?

They don't. We can't afford to do that AND give away trade discount. The saving is really due to the mass production moulds we are working on certain vehicles.

Any likelihood of FV-432s being in the multipack deal…?

Not in the WW2 ranges :-)

Wow 8 pages. That will take me a while to work through. Meanwhile can anyone advise me if this BF BS is contravening Anti-Trust in the USA? It would certainly be anti-competitive here in the EU, and a goodly fine imposed.

…mass production moulds we are working on certain vehicles.

I hope that those are the various transport halftracks!

May I suggest mass-production molds for your trucks, too?

It would certainly be anti-competitive here in the EU, and a goodly fine imposed

Not sure it would. They are not preventing you from buying elsewhere, preventing shops from stocking other products or price fixing.

I hope that those are the various transport halftracks!

Not yet.

May I suggest mass-production molds for your trucks, too?

Lot more bits in those, but I will take a look at them.

Not sure it would. They are not preventing you from buying elsewhere, preventing shops from stocking other products or price fixing.

Well from what I have heard they are rather unhappy about shops that stock their product carrying competing lines and their sales team have been known to roundly criticise competing things they see on FLGS shelves.

As for price fixing there is a hard limit on the maximum discount that they will allow shops to offer. Not sure how legal that is but my understanding is that it was the root cause of the break up with Maelstrom who undercut other shops on price.

Ah, that occurs everywhere. I used to watch the reps for certain confectionary companies come round our local shop and 'rearrange' the shelves to put their stuff at the front, and do their best to bury their competition at the back. They didn't 'like' shops carrying competing products either, but couldn't do much about it.

I'm unhappy that all the shops don't stock more of our products :-)

Now if they were actually preventing the shop from carrying other ranges, that might be a different story. ;-)

One of the problems when you have a popular product is the threat not to supply, which from what I understand is basically what happened to Maelstrom (although a year later I notice Maelstrom still seem to be selling FoW, including the new Sherman pack at 10% below RRP).

Malestrom lost their BF supply for a while but it is back now. I am not sure who it hurt the most.

The 10% off RRP seems to be the norm for buying BF models online.

There you go, M4A1 76mm Shermans, M3 halftracks and SdKfz 251s added…

£16.00 GBP for 5, £30.00 GBP for 10

;-)

Sweet! I need no small number of M3 halftracks for an American Armored Rifle company…

Well…. if you were to buy 6 boxes I think you'll find the 'platoon pack discounts' are still functioning :-)

Dear Battlefront,

Wargaming is a hobby; you are a company who produce some rather odd rules and some average quality models; there is no such thing as a FoW hobby.

As to your generosity in providing people who use your rules and models to play wargames with a website and a forum, according to some marketing professionals and professors of my acquaintance, that is known as relationship marketing. Please so do not assume that your customers are so stupid as to believe that you provide those resources to them out of the kindness of your GW trained hearts.

You also implied that WW2 wargaming would suffer if you were no longer in the market. Well, I have to tell you that WW2 wargaming existed long before you started your company and will probably continue long after FoW has ceased to be the latest craze.

Oh, and one little question for you: are you aware that not all late war SS units were composed of utterly fearless, superbly trained, fanatically dedicated Aryan supermen? Some of them were actually quite average.

They do have SS troops with "Trained" ratings (i.e. not the best "Veteran" rating) in various FoW theater supplments. I think they might be tracking with you there just a bit.

Oh, and one little question for you: are you aware that not all late war SS units were composed of utterly fearless, superbly trained, fanatically dedicated Aryan supermen? Some of them were actually quite average.

Have a look in Devil's Charge KG Peiper are rated as "trained" not "Veteran"
LES

Curious. Without wishing to get anyone DH'd for discussing the SS, just how 'trained' were they?

Did they receive extra/better training or equipment, the pick of the best/most experienced men? Did they have to go through a Wehrmacht regiment before they advanced into an SS unit? Or was it just a case of being highly motivated?

Many late war SS men were drafted in as conscripts, from second-line units, the Luftwaffe or the Kriegsmarine; rating them as fearless/trained may be a slight over-estimation.

There certainly was a period when the SS were better than equivalent Heer units but, by late 1944, this was probably not the case.

The main motivating factor was probably the fact that surrender was not an attractive option, particularly in the East or against certain Western allied units.

Meanwhile can anyone advise me if this BF BS is contravening Anti-Trust in the USA?

No.
One would have to have a very broad definition of "anti-competitive practices". This is just an attempt to regulate the content of tournaments that THEY sponsor. There are many local tournaments sponsored by local shops and groups, and BF would not or could not control them.

We could devote a thread to "gaming with the SS"… :)

Waffen-SS divisions often varied greatly, depending on the task, commander, period, etc. "Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler" was different from 'Polizei' which was different from 'Wiking' which was different from 'Florian Geyer', etc, etc. The officers were consistently well-trained, but suffered from a high level of attrition (they lead from the front). Early war Waffen-SS units (the first eight divisions – roughly-) were very well trained. The other divisions formed later (roughly 30?) made due with vets, prisoners, bandits, Heer volunteers, etc. It all depended on the division. It was a mixed bag – in 1944/45, the 'Wiking' division was still VERY well-trained, but 'Dirlewanger' was made up of prisoners, poachers, and anti-partisan vets, 'Hungaria'/'Hunyadi' of questionably motivated Hungarians, 'Kama' of muslim Croats who were more interested in killing Serbs, 'Maria Theresia' which was freshly re-recruited with new blood and the few survivors of 'Florien Geyer' (which was almost entirely wiped out at Budapest), etc, etc.

There are more knowledgeable people on this forum, but I would argue that you argue that training and motivation varied between and within divisions – some were consistently good, others were all over the place. The officer's schools (Bad Toltz and Braunschweig) were pretty consistent in quality – their materials were even raided after the war by the US and some of the training curricula adapted by the Army and Marines. However, one of the policies of SS officers was to lead from the front, and after 1942, the schools had problems keeping up with the demand for new officers.

Sorry – THAT was rather long winded!

But very good Ken

And of course we could always selectively downgrade any units as we see fit no matter what rules system we use.

We could devote a thread to "gaming with the SS"… :)

That would be even more entertaining than this thread. :D

I do not like gaming with the SS; they tend to cheat.

Gaming with the SS requires knowledge and discerning power,

just as the Red Army was not a homogeneous horde of robot-like bolshevik drones the Waffen-SS were not the phalanx of superior blue-eyed blonde-haired superhumanity that Himmler dreamt about.

Even more, to circumvent the rule that "Only citizens of the German Reich" were allowed to bear arms in the Wehrmacht the Waffen-SS were often used as a 'back-door' to enlist foreigners: Scandinavians, Walloons, French, Hungarians, Italians, Croats, Bosnians, Albanians and even INDIANS CAPTURED AMONG THE BRITISH RANKS.

As we can see less than ideal "racial material" according to the nazi ideals.

To differentiate these foreign recruits from the proper German SS and the Volksdeutsche SS (ethnic Germans from places like Bohemia, Transilvania, Alsace etc.) various degrees of segregation were implemented: foreign recruits were denied the right to bear the SS-siegrunen on collar tabs or (as in the case of Italians) had to wear collar tabs of different colour (red instead of black) it was also said that the higher the divisional number of the Waffen-SS unit the more 'racially degenerate' it was deemed.

However as a rule of thumb the only TRULY ELITE Waffen-SS unit should be considered: "Das Reich" and "Wiking" these units achieved tremendous battlefield results across all their operational life.

Despite its resounding name "LSSAH" (Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler) while competent, was not up to par with them.

Being recruited from concentration camp guards "Totenkopf" division was initially a lackluster formation, only from 1943 onward it did improve its performance more or less on par with LSSAH (never close to Das Reich or Wiking)

"Polizei" division has been a lackluster formation all along, never achieving anything more than average performance.

The same can be said for Divisions "Nord", "Prinz Eugen" and "Florian Geyer" with perhaps Florian Geyer ranking slightly above the other two.

"Hohenstaufen" and "Frundsberg" despite being raised rather late had the advantage of picking their manpower from the RAD (Reich's Labour Service) pool hence at creation were filled up with young, decently trained and reasonably indocrtinated young men of 18-20, they were of good quality early on, later their performance sagged.

"Nordland" was a very good PanzerGrenadier division, mainly made up with right-wing young Danes, close to LSSAH levels.

"HitlerJugend" performed STELLARLY in the Normandy campaign, due to the furore of their fanatized 17 and 18 yo cadets; later heavy losses and replacements of dubious quality made it a competent but not outstanding formation.

Anything more than that goes from 'shaky' to 'barely trained' at best.

Why are you both rambling on about the SS on a message thread that is about the gaming industry and a manufacturer's policies?

Wargaming is a hobby; you are a company who produce some rather odd rules and some average quality models; there is no such thing as a FoW hobby…..WW2 wargaming existed long before you started your company and will probably continue long after FoW has ceased to be the latest craze.

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as much as I think the BF decision is silly and the refs to FoW hobby daft, I'd have to say
1. 'rather odd rules' – that is of course entirely subjective – I might think WRG or any other system I am not keen on is "rather odd" (whereas I love HC, SAGA and Maurice which all might be odd of course to those who believe they are engaging in simulating battle rather than playing games)
2. 'latest craze' – again I am no partisan of FOW but i think its been around well long enough to have passed beyond being a craze.

I asked a question about the validity of Flames of War policy and ratings for SS.

It's interesting, the extent to which some gamers think this is fine. I guess it's the fact that so many of them came up in the hobby via GW, which seeks to limit and control what you can use, for purposes of their own profit.

I came up in historical miniatures and if you had made a similar pronouncement to historical gamers, they would laugh in your face. But the increasing dominance of GW seems to be changing that too.

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'Increasing dominance of GW' – presumably you mean the large number of ex GW people now in historicals (Rob Broom, Jervis Johnson, John Stallard, the Perrys, Rick Priestley, Warwick Kinrade and many more)- though I think its a bit unfair to perhaps infer that implies what? that they are causing the rest of the (non FOW) historical hobby to also be going down the GW line? in what way? Codex creep? I do have some gaming friends who are a bit sniffy about any rule set written by anyone who has ever played with orcs and Space Marines, but to me thats them just being a bit stuffy to be frank.

I'll be unsubscribing my Wargames Illustrated I think.

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its a free country of course but given that PSC etc advertise in WI and that the FOW content is still at a tolerable level, they are not at this moment turning it into the White Dwarf of historical wargaming. I had to smile too at someone above who said that if they wanted a more realistic etc WW2 game then they played KGN – which if I'm not mistaken is a product of the true evil Empire that caused all this in the first place!
And whilst the PSC models are nice enough, having in the past assembled, for 'er indoors to paint, some 20+ T34s, its not an experience that I would willing repeat too soon, esp all the track assemblies (i think at the initial stage I was surrounded by probably about 340 component pieces!)

I do not like gaming with the SS; they tend to cheat

*snerk*!

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I built an 'SS unit' for midwar, but I was doing something really weird-war and needed the troops to be Fearless Veterans.

I was building the 808th Propagandakompanie, more properly the '101st Panzer Jaeger Kompanie,' using the Eureka Scifi Germans. I've since added some DP9 combat walkers to 'count-as' SdKfz22x series armored cars in a Recon Platoon.

I suppose I should make a bunch of Russians in greatcoats, to fight against the Kerberos in the ruins of Stalingrad.

Not sure if the point has been made but of course this kind of corporate approach is not unknown aside of the tiny mill pond that is wargaming (i think it was mentioned in one post re the Dutch World Cup fans) – apparently if you are wearing a Pepsi Cola logo t-shirt (do such things actually exist?) then either you'll be taking it off or not going into a Olympic 2012 venue (one of whose sponsors is Coca Cola of course) no matter how much your tickets cost, per yesterdays London Times and Lord Coe – and presumably if you insist (since more of the security is now being done by the police) then if you make a big enough fuss you might find yourself in the back of a police van – as there will be an implicit acceptance, in buying a ticket, of the entry conditions which include abiding by the venue entry regulations which will include the right of the event holders to refuse entry.

Heres some completley useless information

When the inventor of Subbuteo ( Table top football to those of you that havnt heard of it) went to Patent the game he wanted to call it "The Hobby" but was refused by the Patent board …Not sure why though

If he tried to take a patent on the name it would fail as there is no design or process to patent. A patent would protect the unique elements, e.g. The figures on weighted bases.

To protect the name he would meed a trademark, and "The Hobby" would fail on the grounds of being a generic word.

Here you go, he tried to TM the word. Clever use of an alternative though.

The "Subbuteo" name is derived from the neo-Latin scientific name Falco subbuteo (a bird of prey commonly known as the Eurasian hobby), after a trademark was not granted to its creator Peter Adolph (1916–1994) to call the game "Hobby".

Just for a laugh…

BF's response to a "passionate" (but not rude) email I sent that was in turn a response to their email re this topic

"Greetings Nick,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding Flames Of War. We appreciate you feedback regarding this matter and have taken your comments onboard.

Please let me know if you have any further concerns regarding this matter or any other matter Flames Of War related.

Kind regards,"

Lot of care and empathy in that… lol – it took two weeks to come…

There are ways to make a form email not seem like a form email if you care or are bothered they obviously do not
Translation – thank you for your email f&^k off

As the railroad executive noted on the angry letter, "Send this moron the bedbug letter."

I find these events… disappointing.

Cheers,

The Bandit

Wow, 400 posts! Luckily none of this "BF figures only" nonsense applies locally.

Just a not on the ex-GW guys… ummm…. you guys do realize that a lot of the now ex-GW guys were playing historics and such long before they created or worked for GW…????

As for following the GW business model… well, I can remember a day when GW used to say "make your own models" long before the "GW models only" rule came about… I guess it is just a tested business model… once the fan base is hooked… you can almost do as you wish…. almost.

I am a fanboi, I'll admit that, but sometimes the ridicule FoW gets is beyong rational… Many other rules sets out there fail in so many ways too… I think people love to hate FOW because they are a "corporation" as compared to say… some small time writer's rules…. haters gotta hate I guess.

My only real beef is the lack of "true" ground scale and the fact of having artillery actually ON the board. The models are beautiful, but really? Unless it is some breakthrough game, this just didn't happen.

The ground scale really plays havoc with me… at 15mm on standard table, pretty much any weapon is going to be able to hit anything on the board it can see…. even the inf weapons.

It is abstracted to be sure…

I digressed, sorry….

Bad move on teir part to make their tourneys "FoW" models only… people have a hard enough time buying toys in today's economy… They will be alienating many players, but again, that is their perogative to turn tourneys into fanboi only environments….

Leadgend said:

Wow, 400 posts! Luckily none of this "BF figures only" nonsense applies locally.

[quote/]
You forget the Rangers program, trying to replace the local tourneys with Battlefront controlled ones.

I hear the first question on the survey to become a Ranger is: "What kind of sycophant are you?"

The only correct answer is "What kind of sycophant does Battlefront want me to be?"

link
Thats a shedload of tournemnt and that is befor eht Rangers program kicks in!

I doubt if there will be many non offical tounries in a year or two

This year the British nationals which have been run for years now, were down in FOW (only) by 40%| – there were two other BF tournies run either side of it – funny that

ooops wrong thread

This year the British nationals which have been run for years now, were down in FOW (only) by 40%| – there were two other BF tournies run either side of it – funny that

FoW was indeed down at Britcon but I am not sure which BF tournaments you are talking about John, there is only one BF tournament in the UK this year and that is not for another month.

The problem at Britcon could easily have been too many FoW events and only so many weekends. FoW is still not as big in terms of tournament attendances in the UK as Field of Glory and not even close to the numbers DBM used to get.

The biggest non BF event is Corrivalry which gets high 70s and is venue limited. Other than that 40 players is a big event. The EGT last year got over 100, it will be interesting to see how this year's event goes.

BTW, I got an application form for the Ranger program but I honestly could not return it as signing it would involve me being willing to represent BF at all times including forum posts and there is no way I am going to do that.

"it would involve me being willing to represent BF at all times including forum posts"

as in their own forum?.. surely not any forum you post on?

This is the exact quote from the questionaire / application form (the capitalisation is from the document, not me).

DO YOU UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT BY YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THE RANGER PROGRAM THAT YOU BE DIRECTLY REPRESENTING BATTLEFRONT MINIATURES IN ALL ASPECTS OF YOUR INVOLVEMENT WITH THE HOBBY COMMUNITY (INCLUDING FORUMS):____YES____NO

Make of it what you will. Personally I simply wrote back saying that I was not interested.

Sorry Hammy I thought the TEC and the EGT were either side ot BRITCON – was there not a comp run by BF as a practise for the ETC or EGT?

Hi TT,

The European Team Championships was the week after Britcon. It was not run by Battlefront and was in Poland. There might have been at most 5 or 6 players who did not attend Britcon because of the ETC the following weekend but at least 4 players did Britcon then the ECT.

The GT is in late September so should have had no impact. All together I am puzzled as to why the Britcon FoW numbers dropped so much.

"Make of it what you will. Personally I simply wrote back saying that I was not interested."

I'm not surprised, Anyone who is involved in running a club would naturally be compromised. no one can serve two masters