"What Happened to 15mm SF?" Topic

It has occurred to me lately that a lot of the excitement around the time that I got into 15mm SF (~2010?) has seemed to wear off.

I'm going off of relatively few blog posts, bat reps, and posts on this board.

People are certainly still playing, and I know I'm painting and playing a bit. But there doesn't seem to be as much energy.

Any ideas why?

Well I'm very busy at the moment (my last report was November A bad day for the NUA) but I'm still as keen as mustard!

Lots of reports, almost all 15mm, on the Slammer's gallery pages. Galleries

John Treadaway
hammers-Slammers.com

IMO, a lot of the traffic on this board started to go elsewhere during/after the "Larry Dunn" fiasco.

If you have a FB account, there's tons of activity on the 15mm scifi page over there: link

Got me. When I last did 15mm SF, Traveler figures were new.

I finally decided I wanted 25/28mm for individuals, and 5/6mm when serious battles were in order. A pity, because I do use 15mm for a lot of other periods.

I have to agree with KJ that lots of the furor disappeared after Bill canned Khursan's aka Larry Dunn's accounts. There is lots of wonderful 15 mm models and manufacturers out there and as KJ mentioned a pretty active FB 15 mm Scifi page. I am still looking for the "perfect" rules that will do all I want to do with 15 mm Scifi. I like Tomorrow's War but many in my game group just do not seem to enjoy the mechanics. I am looking at other options.

That and having moved six months ago from Texas back home to North Carolina I have been side tracked with the new job and things are going great guns with Congo and Slaughterloo at the moment. So no time for 15 mm Scifi. It will come back around I am sure.

I agree with KJdidit…

I am still making Sci-Fi product for Khurasan in 15mm as well as trying to find time to paint up Halo Ground Command that I have bought into heavily!

I haven't noticed any drop off in popularity of 15mm Sci-Fi.

Mike

Bill killed it when he booted Khursan out. One of the reasons I don't visit here much now.

A lot less posting about it, since a lot of people have moved on, I suspect.

This is still my go to for Hammers Slammers, but yeah I lurk elsewhere more and more in regards to following what's being released for figures.

I said my piece at the time and it won't change things by going over it again. But yeah…told.you this might happen…

I think it's a natural slump after the relative boom period a couple of years ago. We went from a handful of manufacturers without a lot of support to something like two dozen active companies, several rules sets geared towards the scale and so on. It was a renaissance for the scale/genre, and that means high energy. But that development has leveled as things developed (fewer gaps to be filled) and so I think the fact that activity has slacked off relative to the boom period isn't all the surprising. Interest is still high and steady from what I've seen but it is not the same as the heady days when amazing new 15mm lines and games were coming out of the woodwork.

-Will

There is no slump.

The has 15mm Facebook group has seen constant and growing activity. We add new members all the time and have new blood showing up on a regular basis.

KJdidit has the timeline right but I believe it was more than that one single event that moved much of the traffic. The 15mm FB community has been leaps and bounds less toxic than it was here.

-Eli

2,327 members and 17k photos on the FB group. Drats. I don't do FB, but thanks for making the group public. At least I can read it.

Yeah 15mm is alive and well.
We'll be pushing it really hard this year with a 15mm Sci Fi Kickstarter with six 5150 military factions plus resin terrain.

"We'll be pushing it really hard this year with a 15mm Sci Fi Kickstarter with six 5150 military factions plus resin terrain."

Huh? Did I miss a memo?

Regards,

Scott Chisholm

I'm working on new stuff to :)

Its still going strong, its just at a normal pace now instead of the fever pitch from 5 years ago.

The discussion is mostly on G+ and Facebook though.

There is no slump.

Compared to the amount of activity here a few years ago it is a *relative* slump. But only relatively. :)

-Will

Not a slump over on FB though. If you look only here, sure it looks that way.

I am a member of the facebook group; I agree it's perfectly active but the relative pace of new releases, new game systems, and such appears to have slowed, at least to me. But I agree the 15mm sci-fi environment is perfectly healthy, there's no decline or crash; just a sustainable market. As I said, it's only 'slow' compared to way the market exploded a few years ago.

-Will

Hey Will,

I will admit that the flow of products likely seems a little slower than it used to.

We have had a couple of manufacturers bow out of 15mm completely and Khurasan's absence there means we do not see what used to be his regular flow of teasers and scattered releases which are now confined to his their own FB.

GZG does not post there directly either and they have been pumping out a ton of new stuff just in giant releases.

-Eli

Eli,

I think it also have to do with the rate of rule sets slowing down; Tomorrow's War, Gruntz, Alien Squad Leader, etc all helped drive a lot of activity. Spurred discussion around how to represent different forces, folks released packs to go with games, etc, etc. There hasn't been a new 15mm-centric rules set released in awhile that I'm aware of. Not that such a thing is vital; there's still plenty of stuff coming out! But now it's a mature market, rather then what exploded out of the seeming tabula rasa we had in 2009-ish.

EDIT: I'm thinking back in the day when this was a pretty comprehensive list:
cowell.org/~andy/min/15mm

We've come a long way baby. :)

-Will

I think so some extent people settled into the games they like and are just building and playing with their armies :-)

Looks to me like I just missed the first boat to FB and G+! (Also I mossed some drama?) Thanks for the tip everyone!

"IMO, a lot of the traffic on this board started to go elsewhere during/after the "Larry Dunn" fiasco."

Whoa, what did I miss?

Dan

A pretty ugly affair sometime back. Dunn, the actual owner of Khurasan, was using sock puppet accounts to launch attacks on various other competitors. Bill gave him and Khurasan the heave-ho.

Here's the thread on this.

TMP link

But also had to be Bill while doing it.

I see posts on facebook on Horizon Wars, a lot of people are playing that game with 15mm. It is a very alive and well scale.

Other people read Game of Thrones and watch detective shows.

I read old TMP threads…

There goes an hour off my life…

Some new 'vehicles' coming from GZG soonish, if the prints survive.

Interestingly enough many of the rules listed as driving 15mm sifi were not new to the 15mm scifi rush.

-Eli

@TGunner, I have to say I'm not surprised about the sock puppet accounts one bit. I had a gut feeling that, with him, little things like ethics were more than extremely loose guidelines.

Dan
PS. I have no clue what he looked like in person, but I always imagined him being like "Badger" in Firefly … not to be trusted one bit.

Interestingly enough many of the rules listed as driving 15mm sifi were not new to the 15mm scifi rush.

That depends on how you define the rush timeline. Stargrunt, Laserburn, etc, definitely predate the rush. Alien Squad Leader first came out all the way back in 2002. But:
F.A.D in 2009
Gruntz in 2010
The Crucible in 2010
Tomorrow's War in 2011
5150: Star Army in 2011
Quadrant 13 in 2012
And so on. Definitely not comprehensive, but it's a good cross section.

I'd define the 'boom' as starting in late 2009 and tapering off (for certain definitions of tapering) in 2015. So I do see the rules set as instrumental in helping to fuel the boom the first place; many of the popular rules show up early in the boom period. I don't know if we can credit F.A.D for starting it all but it was definitely on the cutting edge. :)

Anyway, this is mostly a semantics argument in the end since when the boom started, when it ended (if it has ended), what started it and what the boom really was is all up for debate. Bottom line is 15mm sci-fi is in great shape, and all this talk has caused me to dust off a few projects I had let slide. :)

-Will

STOP! Dunn is two-year old news. Get over it and move on people!

FAD was cutting edge? :)

Now you made my ego even bigger!

Unfortunately Dave L it is new news to some of us ignorami. I'll have to consider this if I take a shine to any of KM's minis again, and I wonder if the general 15mm community has moved on by ignoring KM or buying the minis and ignoring the ethics.

As for projects being dusted off. I have a couple Rebel Minis vehicles to get working; just need to buy some primer and get painting again…

@DaveL: "STOP! Dunn is two-year old news. Get over it and move on people!"

Lol. To you maybe. I just found out about it this morning! You had your chance to adjust to the news, now leave me mine.

Dan

I didn't know anything about this as well and am glad it was brought up. I have been reading the thread to find out more. He always seemed like a nice guy to me, but I did have Heinz stifled. Something about his post kind of irritated me. I don't have many stifles either because of Astrominiatures and I only want to use one account.

I think 15mm Sci-Fi is still very active. Most of the post I see are about using 15mm in Near Future like conflicts, which doesn't really interest me, so I don't contribute.

Well, after years of dithering (and my 20mm WWII stuff collecting dust in a supposedly dust-free Creatures in Comfort case), I've recently (this week) decided my next big thing is 15mm sci-fi (oh, how I wish I could say 20mm!!! … Oh, my eyes…). How come everyone decided 15mm anyway? Why not 20mm?

Still … it is what it is… The "Khurasan" thing?
I missed it. Will it stop me purchasing some stuff from him?
No, not at all (sorry, but ethics "bow" to aesthetics when it comes to "my" wargaming/collecting/painting, etc. … ermm "money").

I think it's all a big shame, but what you gonna do?

I'm a huge fan of 15mm sci-fi. I have a lifetime of minis to paint. I think the scale has exploded at least on manufacturers putting out new stuff.

Lots of rules to choose from. We probably need more young people to get involved?

Anyway as for khurasan his products are what made me switch from 28mm to 15mm. I owe him a lot of happy times….

It's Jon's fault, from GZG, I suspect, in many cases.

The other go-to scale was 25mm at the time, back in the Paleozoic era.

Clearhorizon Miniatures continues to grow and grow too… while this forum isn't as active as it used to be, from my perspective 15mm sci-fi is stronger and more well known than it ever has been.

clearhorizonminiatures.com/shop

And while talking about missing companys, anybody know what happened to combat wombat? I have a good bunch of his stuff, but would like more, but he has been off the net for some time now.
And yes I to used to buy a bunch of Khurasans stuff. Loud ninja to, which is also some really good stuff.

According to the FB page Combat Wombat moved to Chicago and is setting up shop again.

Cool. Thanks

I think that with all the myriad releases we're are all too busy painting like mad to post on line……
As for the aforsaid mentioned pantomine to quote my daughter "wotevoor"or bothered not!!

These trends have peaks and troughs, even on TMP. For myself, I've just started a new 15mm Traveller project (linked elsewhere on TMP) whilst juggling a new, 28mm interest.

Also, as interests diverge, the factions follow.

Once the weather improves and painting re-commences in full fury, I expect we'll see an uptick in 15mm postings.

Best regards,
Keith F.