"It is Not a Golden Age Until You Can Buy..." Topic

28mm BASIC Infantry (both Nationalist and Republican) for the Spanish Civil War!
I only wish that Lluis of Minairon would scale up his 20mm figures!

I think the golden age is now gone.

28mm figures are certainly no symbol of a golden age to me (they seem to epitomise what went wrong with wargaming but everyone is entitled to their opinion) …

For me a golden age would be defined by game quality, innovation and historical insights, never by the availability of commercial products and spoon-feeding.

Phil

How does *almost * universal availability of *almost* every figure one might want symbolic of what has gone wrong with the hobby?
You would prefer to NOT have Lee's Legion foot troops or a Spirit if 76 vignette available?

WOTR in 40mm

The term "Golden Age" means something different to me. My Golden Age was in the early 1980s, when I had ready access to games, stores, and miniatures. I could game 250 or more days per year, drive ten minutes to buy the miniatures that I wanted from multiple stores in a city of 78,000.

Now, I'm lucky to game 6 times per year. The last time I bought metal miniatures miniatures in a store, I drove from Ohio to Tennessee, despite living in a metro area with 1.5 million people. And my current gaming is on hold waiting for one order since November 14th of last year and not yet shipped, and a second (shipped quickly, but probably held up in customs)for a month.

I experienced and fondly remember the Golden Age, but it ended around 1985.

For general gaming I concur (thus identifying myself as an OFM – but not one of The OFM's sock puppets) that the coming of 28mm did coincide with the end of my gaming golden age. It certainly put me off metal figures as I had no interest in abandoning what I already had – when you paint as slowly as I do that just isn't an option.

The 20mm plastic Golden Age has also ended – fewer new boxes being produced, fewer still in production (Oh Zvezda ! ).

Fortunately for me my backlog will keep me happy until about 2115.

Well Winston, what is wrong with the hobby is that *almost* every figure that I never wanted is now available, but many that I have wanted for decades are not. And many that were available are not. And some that I might want are not, and some that I do want, and are, aren't useful because of those companion figures that are not. And some, I may just not know about, but that is because you aren't telling me about them.

And of the figures that I can order, only half will arrive in a timely manner, such that I can work on them during the window of my available free time. Others will arrive so long after I ordered them, that I will no longer remember that I am interested in the given period, or my daughter, who was going game with me will have gone on to high school and college and moved away since ordering, or me and the old farts that I game with will have passed on and the next owner of my house won't like that period, so they will never get used anyway.

And instead of carrying the miniatures from long ago, that I still want, all of the current hobby shops carry the same two no-good rules systems that I don't like because I don't want new and improved, innovative, fast play rules or their over-sized, over-priced, completely evil and incorrect, and sorry we a temporarily sold out, but will get them again soon miniatures. I still want the old figures to finish my units, but can't get, because of the new and improved, over-sized, over-priced, completely evil and incorrect miniatures that are temporarily out of stock have replaced.

Oh, and because the guys at the local game club only play new innovative, fast play rules with over-sized, over-priced, evil and incorrect miniatures. And never play the old out of production rules with out of production miniatures that they can't even get!!

Hah!!

You've depressed me. I'm going to work.

I think it ended with the last true wargaming books. Like Yesthatphil said, the innovations and ideas are gone. We are down to the spoon fed, one stop, pre-packaged games.

Game stores are hard to come by and hobby stores, if they still exist only carry other hobby products relating to trains, R/C and rocketry. Sure there are some gaming supplies but that's not how they market them. Even the game sores I know of in my area (I have 4!) tend to special order and keep mostly the GW stuff (and the like) on the shelves.

Most of the products I am interested in these days can only be ordered direct and often across the pond in the UK. The exchange rate is somewhat favorable to the US right now but it won't always be this way.

Wow. for a discussion about the golden age of miniature wargaming, this thread turned really negative really fast.

Maybe some of you guys would be happier just dropping the hobby?

Why would I stop doing something I've loved for 40 odd years just because I think the current commercially saturated environment isn't its golden age?

I'm perfectly happy doing it my way … why should that be an issue to anyone else?

I just don't think we are discussing wargaming's golden age, we're discussing wargaming today

Phil

@ Rhoderic,

Well, I may have over-stated my feelings a little for Winston's sake, but after considering it, I realized that the overall state of my hobby has been better.

In my third paragraph in my Poll suggestion, I said "Golden Age of figure availability".
Let that be your guide.

Hey, John … I got that – just we're doing poll title stuff, not buried in para three

So …

… it isn't a Golden Age until they re-release all those lovely 1960s metal 20mm historical figures …

Phil

why should that be an issue to anyone else?

It isn't, and I didn't say it is. I was merely wondering why you wouldn't be happier – for your own sake – dropping a hobby that you think has "gone wrong". Maybe I've read too much into "what went wrong with wargaming".

Who says I'm not happy? Maybe you should drop it?

But thanks for your concern

Phil

Then, I've read too much into your first post and misinterpreted its tone and message. I apologize.

As Phil said:

"For me a golden age would be defined by game quality, innovation and historical insights, never by the availability of commercial products and spoon-feeding."

28mm forbidden planet figures! Id monster in clear resin

I am stunned not to see Canadian infantry in the Yukon Field Force uniform as a choice

link

Geez. What a bunch of grumpy old men.

Geez. What a bunch of grumpy old men.

I resemble that remark!

Sadly, someone forgot to list, All the SHADO personnel, aliens, vehicles, and human groupies, from the Gerry Anderson TV series, UFO, in both 15mm and 28mm (or 1/48th scale).

You guys are slipping in your advanced age…….

@Rhodderic – the premise of the question, as it is worded, is that the Golden Age has yet to arrive.

My personal golden age was when I could easily game 30 hours a week. And get some painting in on top of that. I can't anymore, and although it had been moving that way for a while that change did sort of coincide with the arrival of 28mm as a dominant scale. And like I said – I'm too slow a painter to switch over. So I'm "stuck" with what I have (mostly).

That's not negativity – it's reality. And, much as I like wonderful source books and the internet I do sort of miss the enjoyment gained from rooting out information from a small number of often poorly informed sources. That was fun too.

On the other hand – there's such a huge amount available today it'd be easy to game hours per week and never touch the mainstream – and I'm sure a lot of people do that as well. And dig it. Good for them. Truly.

No one forgot to list Anything but you.
When the Poll Suggestion was running, anybody could have nonsted anything and it would have been up there to vote on.

Harrumph.

15mm surrendering, cowering and fleeing soldiers, ww2 and onwards, all nationalities.

Other than that, gaming as a hobby has never been better than it is today.

I can take a set of rules written by a guy in Germany, order some miniatures from Poland, some terrain from the UK, play it with my American friends and then discuss it online with a guy in France.

I can get a polished, glossy game, a scrappy indie title or anything inbetween.
I can play that game in most any scale I want and find multiple suppliers I can rely upon.
If I learn about a new game that sounds cool, I can be reading it 2 minutes later instead of having the local store tell me that they can't get it because their distributor doesn't carry it.

Since I prefer 28 mm and every range I want to paint (or collect and pretend to paint really soon) is available; I'm happy. Part of that no doubt is due to my group of gaming friends who will pretty much play anything with any rules.

Casualties for many ranges are MIA as well.

There are MIA because those who might want them never bothered to nominate them in the Poll Suggestion thread.
So kwitcherbellyaching. You had your chance.

M-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-c-e in S-p-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-c-e!

That aside, I think this is the Golden Age of Miniatures.

Are there really no Space Mice?

The Mice must flow….!

Needs a "None of the Above".

"Other" we're in a Golden Age currently.

28mm woodland Indians, tribe specific. ie.. Shawnee on foot in particular, Conquest make mounted Shawnee. Other tribes and personalities.

Dances with Clydesdales,

If I was still focusing on 25+ miniatures and skirmish I would endorse the comment 100% but I buy little if anything taller (nominally) than 18mm today.

I play with 20 mm (say 1/72). I miss Assyrians, Kasite Babylonians and Elamites all from about circa 1300 BC to play with existing ranges of their west neighbors (Egyptians, Hittites…).

And, of course, a wide range of Starwars in the same scale.