"Is Wargaming Entering a new Golden Age" Topic

When it started war games had no big commercial players and in someways was better off. The focus was on the benefit of the players not the profits of the big companies. The problem then was that you had to buy models from big companies who began well, but generally became more and more focused on profit at the expense of the players, trying to make their models exclusive and trap folk into spiraling costs for ever updated rules and army list with little improvement in actual mechanisms. Now even to the point of trying (but hopefully failing) to copyright stereotypes like elves.

Now we have the rise of the laser cutter, 3D printing and PDF rules, we can get what we want without having to go to the giants and with low production costs one of a kined is possible. We can go to more player oriented sources. The internet now provides detail in many cases not avail;able even in books at very low cost. Is this not truly a golden age. The demise of the model shop is but a small price to pay. Most in the UK failed years ago being wholly un-competative on price and stock. Those that remain achieve both.

Is this not the dawn of a new golden age?

I'm slightly puzzled by your premise as no one has ever HAD to buy figures from big companies – there has always been a number of alternative suppliers even in the days of the dominance of minifigs and hinchcliffe

Mike

I think the hobby has been in a Golden Age for several years now. Pretty much anything and everything is available in all scales for every period of warfare known to man. The only limiting factor at this time is is how much you want to spend.

As with everything that is good, however, there is a down side. Trying to find a gamer with like interests can prove difficult, you have gaming groups/friends going off in a dozen directions at once, no one can focus on anything for more than a few weeks at a time, etc. I guess if there are going to be problems with a hobby, these are things that we can live with.

If it is, it's just in time as far as I am concerned. Damn happy to see it.

no. it is too fragmented. scales, periods, rules etc.

Don't know, but I'm enjoying whatever sort of age it might be.

I'm with daler240D.

I agree we're in a golden age for stuff. Amy period, any scale any climate, and a huge choice of rules. For a golden age of actual wargaming, I think it would be easier to find a game.

This 'golden age" phenomena is not unique to Wargaming.

The internet was a boon to any niche hobby or pastime because it allowed sellers to easily connect with the very small group of buyers, regardless of time or distance. Demand more easily fulfilled drives supply.

It's now. You shoulda tried to game in the 1970's. Rough going…

Definitely now, well the last five or so years. Internet has made a huge difference.

Not sure I ever had much involvement with the big commercial outfits, other than buying a few pots of GW red paint.

It is a golden age for quality and variety of figs – but there is still some poor quality stuff being made.

Terrain and accessories are also of high quality if you want to buy and very useful 'how-to' sites on-line if you want to learn.

Source information is now superb where enthusiasts can publish their research on-line or via PDF on whatever obscure topic takes their fancy and free from the tyranny of hard copy page limits.

I reckon the black spot is rules.

The internet has allowed some publishers to take advantage of the wisdom of crowds to test and refine product, think Sam Mustafa, but the downside is that the ease of production means many new items go public, gain a small initial following and disappear like wild flowers.

David F Brown

Evilgong: "the downside is that the ease of production means many new items go public, gain a small initial following and disappear like wild flowers."

Sounds like many Kickstarter projects I've seen in the last year or two, even some that had already been met but still went nowhere. People will have a hard time diving head first again into other future projects, which means that the good vendors that are sticking around might lose out because of the fly by night ones who never delivered on their promises.

Dan

The Golden Age will begin when relatively affordable 3D printers print without striations.

There are as far as I am concerened many "hardcopy expensive rules that certainly "gain a following and then dissapear like wild floweres" only add having been "eliminated by weedlkiller by their publishers" to ensure their revenue stream". So I see no change for the worse.

Kick Starters are by their very nature a gamble, nobody should back one if they are not prepaired to lose their money.

ProvateSnafu, The great divide on what is acceptable as a wargames figure will rage on, 3D print or not. Many commecial figures and models I consider are already over detailed and fragile for use as regular wargames figures. Because you can is not a good reason to make them so as far as I am concerned. At wargame ranges striations on 3D prints have never been an issue for me, being invisible at 4 ft range.

I see both pro and cons. Sure you dont have to carve your own figures like Charlie Sweet did. However, The bar for painting and terrain quality has really been raised,so much so that people for the most part end up having it done for them,or the quality isnt up to magazine level and some ass comes along and makes negative comments(It happens all the time,such as snobby comments about felt).

@UshCha

I'm in agreement largely. Overly detailed and fragile figures are not in my collection. I was thinking of historical figures such as the ones produced by Gripping Wallet or Warlord.

Not to pick on Bill but his lizardmen are terrible. I couldn't be bothered at that level of quality other than testing something out.

Regarding what is acceptable. To each his own. In my opinion some of the old ranges are little more than nostalgia for grognards. Some should be taken behind the woodshed and put down.

I can see both sides of the argument. At the club Evilgong and I both attend, we definitely have gone 'a ruleset too far' without the chance to develop an intimate mastery of any one particular set. But I've not yet had a game there I didn't enjoy, with someone to hold my hand ruleswise.

The thing is, when I was first playing Cold War Gone Hot in the closet in the 1980s, little did I think it would ever be a major commercial concern, with new, cheap and incredibly detailed models coming out all the time, supplements, live release events, etc. Amazing!

No, we are in the golden age of diffusion. Instead of coming out of the basements and closets and joining and meeting up with a fellow kin, we are once again retreating to the solitude of solo gaming. The places we can connect with locally are fewer. Board game outlets provide some chance of connection but the diffusion of that part of the hobby impacts finding of like minded people.

If your experience is different than mine I hoist one to you.

This is the first time I have ever verbalized this and probably shouldn't have let myself become a nattering nabob of negativity. So in the spirit of repentance and the holiday, Merry Christmas.

It's funny, I was just having this discussion with my friend on the hour drive to Seattle. We were leaving the local game store. We've known each other and gamed together for forty years, beginning when Dave owned a game store in Tacoma. We talked about miniatures and boardgames, and how it is possible to get almost anything you want for any period. We also reflected that miniatures have developed larger corporate entities with their fingers in multiple pieces of the pie from rules to miniatures--no I won't name names--and that probably is less good for the hobby in many respects.

Overall for all aspects, no.

Golden age of minis,probably. 3D printing will add to this age of getting complete lines of minis. However rules seem to be going the other way. Rules now seem to be going the direction of games for games sake. Historical considerations seem less relevant. Is this a golden age? I actually think this is the beginning of the end of historical miniature gaming.

14th NJ Vol, the net is out there there is sure to be folk who still have connection to reality. I play modersns an it is a problem when the grip slips on reality towards fantasy gameing.