How much game is too much game?
It’s such a slippery slope. Young and casual gamers like smaller games with digestible rules, and fun, snappy outcomes. Grizzled veteran lifestyle gamers want complexity, depth, and advanced mechanics. So how much game is too much? For me, the test is: how often do I forget a step? In Mice and Mystics, we always forget to advance the ridiculous clock mechanism. So we don’t even mess with it anymore. It’s a fun game, but we spend so much time floundering with bad rolls we’d be facing continuous penalties. That is if we ever remembered to advance it. There are exceptions though. In Cursed City and Blackstone Fortress we often forget to roll for Inspiration Points. But that’s just like forgetting to draw a treasure card after an event. There’s no mechanic behind it. There’s definitely a point in the rules where I go: uggh, oh boy, this is too much.…
Why are models fun, and what is nostalgia?
Toy soldiers are a very British thing. Britains began in late 1800s, and European tin soldiers date back to the early 1700s! These toys are famous the world over, though sadly out of production now. So it stands to reason that a British company currently leads the world in model soldier production. Games Workshop, consciously or not, is the modern standard bearer of a legacy that goes back hundreds of years. So why are they fun? What is nostalgia anyway, and why to people feel it and/or seek it out? It seems like nostalgia for model wargaming and GW products are talked about so frequently that you’d think GW produced nostalgia themselves. And in some ways, they do. I imagine any entertainment company deals with nostalgia in some form or another. Disney has to maintain and update their parks to bring in and entertain guests. But they can’t change it…
Is your hobby escapism?
Diving into your interests and working on hobbies is a lot of fun, but what is driving you? The lure of imagination land is strong. There’s no boss, no deadlines, no school or homework. The only problems you have are pre-agreed upon. You know it’ll be hard to sneak past the dragon and use your ray-gun to “liberate” that treasure chest. You know the road home will be fought with hazards, brigands, and of course a murky swamp where you get stuck for three weeks and eventually die by vampire frog attacks. You opted-in to all that. You might not necessarily be running away from something in your real life. But for a bit, you don’t have to deal with it. It doesn’t matter about global or national politics, who your family is, or how much treasure is in the chest. It’s like watching a movie and forgetting for a…
How long have you been “in the hobby”?
How long have you been in the miniatures/painting/gaming hobby? For me, medium-ish, I’d say. Not as long as others, but the time since beginning to now is substantial. It all started when I was a wee lad in 1989 or thereabouts. There was a local hobby shop that carried trains, toys, squirt guns, model car kits, games, miniatures and paints. That is the origin story of my hobby experience. That store was pretty much all I could think about in those young dawning years. Ral Partha, Citadel, Grenadier, Marauder. Rogue Trader, Space Hulk, Advanced HeroQuest, Man O’ War, and many more. This was our mecca. From 5th grade to 9th grade were the gaming years. Not that I was a big gamer. I really wasn’t. I liked the art, painting, and building. Hobbying started to tail off a bit in middle school, then high school rolled around. 1993-1994 and that…
Modern miniatures and the uncanny valley
I’d like to revisit a topic I talked about a couple weeks ago. Modern Games Workshop models. This is a controversial topic because people are passionate about both old and new. It’s really great that people have found things they genuinely enjoy, and I do not meant to diminish anyone’s interest in anything. This is a longer article than I usual write, so if you want to skip right to the uncanny valley section, it starts in section 3. I’ve been trying to psychoanalyze myself as to what drives my personal preference in miniatures. Opinions and biases are 100% subjective. I am in no way saying something is right or wrong. I’m going to be talking about my own personal preference. I’m sure this won’t ingratiate me with anyone. To break it down, I’d say there are 3 factors driving my preference toward older miniatures. All of those are real…
Hand sculpted vs computer sculpted
Why do the new GW models look the way they do? Is Computer Aided Design (CAD) affecting the aesthetic? I don’t even have the words to describe how they look. They’re less-characterfull? They’re more generic? They’re overly uniform? They’re abnormally standardized? They’re too boardroom flowcharted? They’re too scale-accurate? They look like they the sculpting was outsourced and they’re designed to spec. Maybe they’re designed in-house, but the really look like they’re designed by a completely new staff. In some ways they’re great. In other ways, they do not look like a GW model. They don’t have a GW feel to them. Do I like them? Yes, I suppose. Do I own many of these? Not too many. Also, the Warhulk pictured to the right costs $55.00 USD. The days of finding an interesting GW blister pack for pocket money are long gone. I find that some of the magic, whimsey,…
A final word on Darktide
I was at a game store over the weekend and held a copy of Darktide in my hands. It was surprisingly heavy, considering the contents are pretty megre. Also, the box was a cheap tuck-box. That’s not going to hold up well on the shelf. Gorechosen, the game I recently compared it to, was $70 U.S. at retail for 4 miniatures! So, it could be worse, I guess? In any event, I’m happy to have copy of White Dwarf 500 and a physical card to play Grombrindal in Cursed City. I need to get some paint on my vampire slayer Grombrindal ASAP!!
Update on Darktide the Miniatures Game
So the price is in for Darktide The Miniatures Game. It’s $110 U.S. This game right here. It costs $110! You get 20 minis and some cardboard for $110. That’s $5.50 per figure. Cursed City is $3.33 per model, and appears to be about 10x the game. Generally speaking, I’m pretty charitable when it comes to Games Workshop. But this is too much. If GW does release a new Warhammer Quest game in the future, I’m not sure I’ll be able to afford it.
I just kicked in a door and fought everyone in the room. Am I the baddie?
Something occurred to me during the pandemic. After being locked in for a while we started exploring those less frequented corners of our house. It turns out I still had all the hobby stuff from my teen years. Everything is still in pretty good shape so we’re HeroQuesting! We’re kicking in doors, we’re stabbing everyone inside! We’re… wait… what are we doing? These orcs were gathered around a fireside table with their only worldly possessions neatly stowed in a chest. We woke mummies from their tombs only to stuff their dusty bones back into their scarcoffigi after looting their final resting place. We stomped on goblins who stole our stuff. OK, well that one felt good. But who’s the real monster here? I have to admit, I felt a little guilty about making every encounter a bloodbath. But that’s HeroQuest, the game is so small that’s all there is. I…
Spindly vs Game Pieces
The 1990s are starting to be a long time ago now. That was my first run of interest in miniatures, wargaming, dungeon crawls and the like. Now with the pandemic still going, I’ve picked up the paintbrush again. I’ve definitely noticed a difference in miniatures, new miniatures are AMAZING. But as beautiful as new sculps are, I prefer the game-piece-iness of old models. Sure, new models are more proportionate, sculptural, etc. But these are game pieces! I’m looking a them from across a big table! And the spindlyness! I’ll really get into get-off-my-lawn territory there. So I guess what I’m getting at is that new minis are beautiful sculptures, but they make poor game pieces. The pictures below (not my paint jobs, clearly!), demonstrate robustness vs frailty. It is a bit funny though because I was getting out of the hobby by the time 1995 was rolling around. They were…