@@jammywesty91 I just dont get how you would even enforce it? 😂 "Oi you got a license to play 40k?" "Oi you got a license to be out of your grave copper!" 😂
"There are too many wargames these days' is really code for "I can't find folks who play the game I want." Which I have sympathy for, but fewer games isn't the answer.
I hear people have way too much trouble finding a DnD table they like and dont need to engage "Soapy Earth protocols" and all they have is - What edition you want to play? Officalish or Homebrew stuff? Do you like the people at that group? Meanwhile if I want to play X.. simply how many people who play wargames will simply not be interested in it? B i g variance.
Keep in mind these people have an agenda to put down other games. Remember that Trench Crusade creators upset the alt-right by telling them they weren't welcome when they tried to flood there during the Female custodes incident. So they decreed that Trench Crusade was "woke" and thus they want it to fail. These are the kind of people that want a "central authority"
Why is that? If one company has a sufficient portion of the market share- or more importantly, a larger share of the tables that have wargames happening on them - then their attitude and decisions will effect wargaming as a whole.
I think they just used a very odd sounding term there. The entire sentence can be interpreted in the way it´s being done in this video and yes, this way it seems rather questionable. But it can be read in a deifferent way. Like "democratizing" the particular games within their particular communities. In that case, the "central authority" would just be a professional publisher. The publisher is responsible for lore, rules (the official ones for competitive), models etc. The opposite would be a game with an open-source-ish approach. I think (hope) the original comment was meant that way. It would at least make sense then in a way. The 40k community is somewhat cohesive and kinda "ruled" or at least moderated by GW. An indie-game published by one dude or a small team will most likely not be able to provide such community-building. So game "X" probably won´t have an "X"-community but multiple smaller groups with potentially various ideas of "X". That resembles classic card games (the old ones, before there were brands and copyrights) like Canasta for example. I´m from southern Germany and here we have a game called "Schafkopf" (In the more "german" regions of the US, like Minnesota, the game "Sheepshead" is a variant of this). It derives from a certain form of card games that originated somewhat from the late 17th century. The basic rules are the same everywhre but basically every single town has its own variants of additional rules. There were many iterations of printed rules throughout the centuries but it took until 1989 for the competitive scene to adopt a unified set of rules by a "central authority". This authority is just a club of private people, so its "power" is nothing official, just something the scene agreed on. A bit like the founding of a commonwealth in John Lockes philosophy tbh. This can obviously be a problem but it doesn´t have to be one. It depends on what you´re interested in. If you just want to play a fun game just for the fun of playing it, then there´s obviously nothing wrong with a fully democratized, decentralized,anarchic non-community. If you´re looking for a fully franchise-backed game that´s massive enough to be an entire hobbyby itself, with tons of lore, international community and competitive scene etc., then a "central authority" (honestly a very odd wording) is required to manage that. An authority in the form of usually the publishing company with "power" regarding the published game, not gaming itself. My guess is, that the original commentor just prefers games with a cohesive community and a publisher with the last word on official lore and rules. But for some reason they accidentally or intentionally phrased it very very odd and ambiguous.
@@eewweeppkk They're talking about an appointed authority that has control over the act of gaming to the point of issuing licences for GMs to run roleplaying games, and dictating the height of static grass on your mini bases, such as in Knights of the Dinner Table; not just some company that affects the market simply because it has the biggest share, thereby causing waves throughout the industry with its every move.
@thoughtengine Being an authority doesn't have to literally mean an appointed body. An authority can just be a knowledgeable or influential force. In this case, GW is probably the most influential force in wargaming for most wargamers. If they change how they do things, wargaming for most people will change and it will have bleed through effects on other games. I think people freak out about the term central authority because they can't attach a shred of nuance to language. It doesn't need to be used in it's literal political context.
@@PMMagro Surprised it would take that long. I've seen my kids play WH, boring as ****, and long turns where one side effectively does very little. My boys now older, enjoy playing Quar, Silver bayonet, 7TV, Void Admiral, Song of Blades&..... We got some of their buddies around to play a sci fi (hover bikes) version of Faustus Furious, a miniatures chariot racing game. I've failed to paint a load of gladiator models to play Arena of Blood, perhaps Easter.
This is my experience of 40k too. The *idea* of 40k is awesome: huge armies clash on a cinematic table covered in beautifully crafted terrain; the *reality* is hours long turns spent messing around on your phone and occasionally rolling a saving throw.
I'm paraphrasing here on your comment "Most folks make their indie wargame with no expectation of making into the next Warhammer, they just want someone to play it and enjoy it". This is the nail on the head. As someone who has made an indie game, we just want folks to give it a try. The creative journey is a fun part of the process and its very rewarding. Thanks for the video!
It'll never happen because its always been fragmented. There's Roman wargamers, Napoleonic wargamers, WWII wargamers. Games Workshop & the like are just a small time period wargame, there are many time periods.
Most Warhammer players don’t know anything about the roots of their hobby and don’t even know historical games exist. Except maybe Bolt Action these days… Seriously, one GW gamer told me: ”I would like to play a WWII game, but they don’t exist.”
@@maxxon99 Also i kinda would say if they couldnt find people to play it... does the game exist to them? If i want to make a Campaign game focused on purifying group and blasting gooey monsters but no one wants to play it, it unexists intill someone i can find nearby wants to play it.
This is the same mentality from the console wars. I spent a lot of money and time on my choice, so my choice must be the only correct one and all other choices must be opposed.
Come on, we all know the only true choice is to join the PC Master Race 😜 Seriously I have been through so many format wars I have a nervous tick about the subject
My rules book collection is quickly over taking my board game collection. My WIP pile of shame is bigger than my fully painted collection. My printed but not started painting pos is bigger than my WIP pile. My printing backlog from patron subs (which I've now cancelled) is nearly a tb. 😂😂😂😂 Not diagnosed but there's indicators 😂😂
I would bet a lot of money, that the same people who want there to be a 'central authority' in gaming - also assume that that authority would recognise them as 'special' - and they would then promptly throw a fit every time the authority did something they didn't like.
It was the free rules release Osprey did of Frostgrave in the pandemic that got me back to wargames. When GW killed of WHFB I lost all illusion that they were a company that cared about their games or their customers, but living in the GW bubble I had no real idea of the other wargames that existed, so instead of switching to one of those I quit the hobby, and played board wargames (Sekigahara, the COIN series etc.) instead. Discovering Frostgrave has since led me to, unsurprisingly Rangers of Shadow Deep and the Silver Bayonet, but also to Forbidden Psalm and most recently Infinity. If it wasn't for these people offering alternatives to GW I wouldn't have this rich part of my life at all!
When I stopped playing 40k my gaming group berated me endlessly saying my reasons for giving it up were stupid and I should stop trying to get other people to play other games because it would ruin the group. They banned other games from the group so I wished them well and left. It sucked but they were happy with 40k and I wasn’t. I joined another group that played a mix of mantic games and Dropzone Commander and it was more fun than I’d ever had wargaming in 40k. Mentioned it to a couple of the old group when we met in the LFGS and they asked for a demo of DZC. The next day I got an angry call from the organiser of the original group saying I was trying to break up their group, which I absolutely wasn’t. Some people just feel like “other games” are a threat. I think that’s because they know gw games rules suck and they are afraid people will move away from their preferred game setting, at least that’s what o think happened with this guy.
To a certain kind of person being the 'organiser' can be a position of power that they hold. By suggesting alternatives they can view that as you attempting to take their position of power for yourself. Normal folks don't take that into consideration because they just want to have fun and play games but it's often a reason for this kind of attitude.
I've been there. Another reason with Warhammer is "we spent so much money on it". They need other people to also spend that much money on it. That's not a problem with most other games, less with 3d printing
@@basstedson It's also that they're heavily invested in it and it's hard to admit that there is something better out there. It's the "member of a cult" issue
Definitely sunk cost fallacy. The time and money investment to get half of a 40k army ready is more than most people CAN do, so for those that have the ability to do so they still need to put so much of their effort and money forward to get it tabletop ready. If you spend Ober $500 and dozens of hours on the prep, you better believe you'd want to bust it out at every single opportunity and not want it's space shared with other things.
I spent a lot of moneybon 40k then hurricane maria hit Puerto Rico and i lost my home, so after thw hurricane i sold most of my 40k stuff for cheap since i needed the money 5 years later i tried to get back amd almost cried when i saw the pricing! I looked for cheaper alternatives and wound up playing Grimdark Future Firefight by One page rules perfect outcome since the rules are free and i can use what leftover minis i had left basically 40k has become anti poor, so I'm glad that there's alternatives to it in the market.
I used to own an Eldar Army and I sold it to get into Star Wars Legion. I only have a Clone Trooper army. I have thought of using my Clone Trooper Army as a proxy Eldar army. Or reinvest in Eldar and play them in Star Wars Legion.
As the local pusher of new games at a predominantly 40k focused club there's a few things I've noticed that tend to be common elements. The first is sunk cost. Not just in money (and let's be clear it's a lot of money) but also time. If you've spent all your childhood playing one game or enjoying one setting people are often afraid to leave that bubble. Not just because they might not like it, actually the opposite. People are often afraid that if they like another game they've "wasted" all that time and effort on the "wrong" game. The second is the fear of finding someone to play with. I guess this is almost the opposite of the first issue. If you get into a new game, buy all the models, learn all the rules, and then no one else picks it up that's also "wasted" effort. Again its a fear the've picked the "wrong" game. The thing is, there is no wrong game. Every wargame is good at different things, and they evoke different feelings when playing them. It's like movies. Sure you might love Star Wars, but is Star Wars the entirety of your film consumption? No, of course not. With wargames if you just play 40k forever you're just watching the metaphorical Star Wars on repeat. It's very telling that when you do manage to convince someone to try something else they more or less immediately start playing 12 other games at the same time.Sometimes, you do want Star Wars, sometimes you want Saving Private Ryan and crack out flames of war (or chain of command, or bolt actions and so on.) Something GW has become very good at is bombarding players with updates and new releases. It takes a lot to keep on top of 40k, for example (See for example the current deluge of detachments) and this pushes the idea that all games are like that and if you wanted to pick up another game, well now that's twice the effort needed! This obviously isn''t true, even amongst other GW titles. Middile Earth is getting a new edition in a few days but the changes are extremely minor. If you've played it before you could have the changes explained to you in a few paragraphs. Even competitively driven games like infinity or Conquest only have updates twice a year or so. This isn't even to touch on complete games. As someone who loves indie wargames (I've even written and published a few) to me it goes back to that movie analogy. Having this vast library of games on your digital shelf is like going to your big shelf of DVDs (or hard drives I guess) and deciding what kind of experience you want for that evening. To address one of the questions asked, yeah, you need to sometimes be the one providing both armies. As Adam mentioned for skirmish games this is easy, but even for bigger games it's still relatively cheap compared to the big alternatives. You can get entire Kings of War, Bolt Action, flames of war, even GW's own middle Earth armies for less than a single 40k unit. Doing both sides is very, very common in historical communities because they've been doing this a hell of a lot longer and are kind of proof that tons of games doesn't hurt. If you're interested in doing say, the American Revolution here in the UK, you're not going to be able to find someone as easy as doing Waterloo or the English Civil war, but if you rock up to the local historical club with both sides and a rulebook for whatever ruleset you want and ask someone to play, they're probably going to say "Hell yeah sounds sick" or whatever the kids say nowadays. (Kids play these games, right?) The last point (and I'm certain that a bunch of those comments are from these guys) is that there's a subset of people who, for a bunch of reasons, make a particular game their entire personality. They're "the 40k guy" or the "AOS guys" or whatever. They eat, sleep and breath that particular game. The kind of guy who when you strike up a casual conversation will go off about list ideas or something. It's hard sometimes to tell the line between someone who just enjoys a game and someone who makes it their personality, but you get a feel for it after trying to advocate any other game for a while. These people are lost causes, you're never going to get them to even try another game.
Oh hey, I should probably point out that I am an indie game creator. I made D-Day Paratroopers: Behind the Atlantic Wall. A solo miniatures agnostic wargame. You play it as a campaign where each campaign turn (so 1 battle/mission) takes half an hour and you start with your Paratrooper landing in Normandy at midnight. You have to scramble to your rally point, collect friendly soldiers using your Cricket, try to avoid running into any enemy patrols, take out enemy outposts and travel to your Primary Objective: the guns overlooking Omaha and Utah beaches. You remember the second or third episode of Band of Brothers? Well, you get to PLAY Band of Brothers. It's on WargmeVault No I'm not trying to topple GW or Warlord Games for that matter. Heck, I bought a BUNCH of Bolt Action minis to playtest this.
I think the abundance and variety makes *this* the "golden age" of wargames. There *is* such a thing as "glutting the market", but I have confidence in "survival of the fittest" preventing an overall market collapse. My 2 cents...
I can’t believe you even had to make this video. I LOVE having so many options. Competition is good in every market. For example, the garbage that is EA Sports NFL/college video games is the direct result of not having to compete. They can just spew out game after game, year after year without even trying to bring their best. Why would they if the profit margins are there and they’ll always have an audience that has ZERO other option? As well, more games means better/improved mechanisms, variety in the game’s themes, and options for people with DIFFERENT BUDGETS. Keep the vids coming UNC!!!
This video was excellent. The idea that there is too much choice is ridiculous. More choice means you can't get ripped off by excessive prices or bad products. Everyone has to improve their products to survive in a competitive market.
This "single game" concept from the Warhammer 40,000 crowd is hilarious. The first wargame I played was Star Fleet Battles, which got me into the gaming store. There, I got a chance to play miniature Napoleonic wargaming. That got me into buying, painting, and using miniatures for my D&D campaign, with the figures on the map adding to the experiences of battles. From there, I saw miniatures being painted and used to play Warhammer, the original fantasy-based game. That was in 1983. It was only later, just before I enlisted and went into the military, that 40K came out, and it wasn't until the following year that I even saw anyone play it. Only in the naivete of youth who lack a memory going back to the pre-40K throne even believe that 40K is the "original" wargame and thus should be the "one and only."
I love living in the golden age of wargaming. Exploring all the different rulebooks is fun and interesting even if you never play the game. As for cool new minis, we can never have enough of those, right?
I find it amazing how ingrained the zero sum assumption is in this day and age. More than two things can be popular at once and be good. Competition is good, choice is good, free will is good. Those things drive innovation, drive creativity, and potentially fun. What I am hearing is people informing other people that they are having fun wrong. Just roll dice and have fun, does it really matter how?
A good video, that every wargamer should watch. I'm always amazed by the sheer amount of subservience I find in many wargamers (at least online, I don't attend events and only play with friends) when it comes to the topic "how much should we follow a company". I mean, the whole benefit of living in a market economy (with its many problems) is that it offers so much variety that basically anyone can find something that fits his needs/tastes. Moreover, this means that you can't be forced by the will of a single actor (unless you enjoy that), because you'll always have an alternative. And this provides the consumer/player with leverage, because otherwise the company would hold him in its grip. Now, many players seem instead to enjoy doing only one thing (not a bad thing in itself), but some of them go further and seem to enjoy crushing other players' choices, always defending a company practices even when it is evident that they are not exactly in favor of the consumer/player. From the outside, they look like thralls/pawns of the company. And comments like the one you mentioned at the start of your video point towards that idea. So I'm glad that someone like you, who has a very good following and can communicate so well, can shed some light on the subject and maybe bring some common sense into their minds, because for people like me, who seem to always be at the end of those thralls' stick, it kind of gets frustrating facing always the same complaints from them. Thank you, Uncle Atom.
I think you are correct. I also think the subservience comes from that self-deprecating and isolationist point of view that many tabletop gamers face from growing up in a society that often attacks difference and intelligence. You often hear people talking about their love for games as a kid and then getting to their late teens and feeling the need to bend to what they see as societal norms. It's normally accompanied by the phrases "act cool", "impress girls", "beer", "parties", etc. Then many of us come back to it later on in life when we feel more self-confident or no longer care what society wants us to do. I know it is getting a lot better now gaming is far more normal, but it's still there for many people. I mean when I was a kid no one would dare admit they liked D&D, but now it seems everyone wants to play it or has played it. If you talk to my parent's generation they still sneer and talk about games (video and tabletop) like we are in the 60s or something bonkers - the games industry is bigger than the film and music industry combined, especially when you point out sports are games. Thankfully I have some younger family members who were asking me about TTRPGs in their teens because of Stranger Things and the fact that almost all current computer games can site D&D as an ancestor somewhere down the family tree. But, to get back to the point. I think for some, lonely gamers, they never get the chance to find a comfortable space to be themselves and play the games they want to. They simply embrace the conservative views about life and tabletop games not being "cool" or "ok" for an adult to do. So they turn to online spaces to convey their anger at not being able to be themselves in public because no one is like them. And they hope more people would play that one big game, so that they too might be seen as cool for wanting to play that game and in doing so find someone to play with, but it's all mixed up with a lot of negative thoughts. The amount of comments I see online about people who want solo-play versions of a game because they have no one to play with really backs this up, especially when you add in the comments that Adam mentions in this video. Sadly some people just need to be brave and travel to a games club or set one up and start trying new things and meeting new people. Humanity is amazing because it's so creative and diverse in its creativity and that is reflected in our market economy. But if we, humans, don't socialise enough our creativity can lead us to toxic creations that don't help us or anyone around us. I think that is what we are seeing in the comments Adam highlighted today. Sorry for the long ramble. TLDR: I agree with you and think it comes from a bunch of negative aspects of society and the pressure it can put on people to conform.
My the DnD people are even worst, they are ENCOURAGING wotc to put mind control spells in the books so you are forced to pay for their AI DM because... running dnd is hard and how dare you alter the rules? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 I been documeting these weirdos debased attempt to sell our free wills and man, just patheic. 😂
I personally say it a thing of domination. They are losers and given a mote of power, they want to dominate, brainwash and control people because they can.
2:41 in many ways “everyone writing their own rules and making their own models” is a return to form. From what I understand, that was the norm for war gamers in the 60s and 70s, before GW and other companies came into the scene. Dave had his French and Russian Napoleonic armies, and people went over to Dave’s basement and played with Dave’s Napoleonic rules.
Anyone who touts any GW game as the pinnacle of wargaming is a muppet. Games Workshop do not even tout themselves as a gaming company! Their statements all refer to them being a miniatures company! Not a wargaming company! The cult vibe is real with GW.
I agree . If you take the cool models and lore away and you're left with a bloated game with people throwing boat loads of dice at each other (with all the dice mods that go with it) with a premium price tag . Don't get me wrong , I'm no elitist and people enjoy what they enjoy , but I've played a lot of games since quitting 40k back in 7th and can honestly say I've played a lot of games that are better than anything GW has to offer
Nah, OPR players are the cult ones lol. They mention it anytime you talk at Warhammer, even when it makes no sense (talking about rules being dumbed down, then somehow suggesting OPR as an alternative)
Most of these arguments seem more like "I need someone to impose control on everyone to overlord MY lack of self control". Personally, I don't need less games. If too many games was the problem, GW is guilty of it on an internal basis too, right now. What I do need is the groups I actually game with to stop chasing the plastic squirrels of the moment- 'We're playing Horus Heresy!' Cool, got an army. 'Uh, we're playing Old World!' Ok, watched a few games, now I'm getting some Bretonians. 'Hey, I did this kickstarter 4 years ago and it came in.' Ok.. 'Holy shit, these Trench Crusade models are sick.' Yeah... 'I really want to run a Necromunda Campaign'. [gazes forlornly over my Imperial Army and Death Guard. While also realizing I was one of the people who really wanted to play Imperialis] -And now we're not playing anything. That's not because there are too many games, it's because WE can't make a damn decision.
agree with this to a point. I think those people do want imposing overlord but only for their game. If the authority was for another game thats not the top pick they would lose their minds over it and scream about it. A lot of people love strong authority when they agree with it. i just want less gw im sick of them, im sick of every you tuber talking about them and im sick of everything being about them. I still love 40k. but its crap at this point.
@@ThePlayplay64 for me i hate 40k Imperium and Choas because they are cringe, ineffective and most people who like them would get put into concrete 😂 I like 40k because of the Emperor's gambit to beat the Writers and he almost won x2 😂 Just imagine if that Hickman guy wrote thr Emperor story. Also i love the Shaman origin since it is so based
@@Subject_Keter I like SM, i have my own home brew chapter im working on. For me i remember my brother painting them at the kitchen table when i was very little. 40k has been in my life from my earliest memories. 40k, MTG and D&D are how i learned math , read and write ect. so im very biased on it. There are many things in the lore i hate, but one thing i do love is everything sucks. I love that the setting , I love how awful humanity is. I like alot of the older stuff. Now, there is so much of it that ive lost touched 100+ books is not my thing. But i can say, i dont like how soft and .. odd things are looking and seeming. Alot of the art work does not do it for me and some of the things i hear about from others dont sound very 40k to me. Im not sure if I fall into the "most people" category for you. But as much as i love SM and the imperium for how much they suck. I am sick of them and the minis for them. I want to see more xeno and real chaos. Chaos can be so messed up and phycological torcher that i want to see. Im sad we dont get to see that.
@@ThePlayplay64 This is going to be the weirdest complain about why I dont like 40k... but everything feels inorganic and "clean" for a thing that should be messy. "We need the eldar because some people like them" "Chaos should be strong but.. not too strong or organized" "The tau need to be e d g y so people can hate them more" I feel like 40k could of been alot more fun if they didnt decide to flush all those weird xenos down the drain. Instead of having like 10 groups, imagine if there was like 20 or 30 groups. It like they use the kid gloves but claim to be all this and that, it creates a strange paradime where everything is on the table beside what they need for new creations. Still like it more then other stuff but it very.. conflicted?
Even GW alone already makes more games than many are willing to buy/ learn/ play. It's not just indie companies. Ex. I've had to buy enough Adeptus Titanicus to cover my own army and any prospective opponents. According to my FLGS, there's only one other guy I've yet to meet who also buys AT from them.
Thank goodness that there are others, like you Adam, who post 'mind opening' clips like this! I am 66, now recently retired, have been screaming for 50+ years! I have played so many different games over that time, table top, miniatures, hex and counter, and board games. Based upon that experience, IMHO, one of the major pitfalls with GW products,his that it often creates blinkered neophytes! They no longer see the wood for the trees! Their boat is just fine,who don't rock it! They can become dictatorial, much like the rules sets produced by GW. Carry on the great work Adam. 👍😉🍻
I like the choice given by multiple games and miniature suppliers. I collect more than I paint, and I paint more than I play. My IG army is mostly non-GW minis because there are so many great looking minis out there from WGA, Fireforge, Victoria, etc. I just ordered some Ooh-Rah and Bulldogs kits which look like they are going to be a hoot to build, convert, and paint. MaxMini has an excellent tank Christmas box right now that is extremely affordable and I was thinking about picking up.
So some people think it would be a better world if we got rid of most games so we could all focus on n one or two? Ok , lets start by scrapping everything by GW , that'd instantly improve the hobby scene . Biggest doesn't mean best . McDonald's is the biggest name in thefast food industry but overall its just crappy food whose only real saving grace is its easy to find . Imagine taking maccys out of the picture . All of those little places that make great food with real passion suddenly get to flourish as all the people who only ever had McDonald's suddenly discover these great little businesses . Biggest doesn't mean best
I wanted to play Mordheim. A year ago I started painting up warbands and getting terrain. Now I have enough that I can invite friends over and they can play a game with me. Their investment has been the time to learn and play the game. Mine has been a lot of time and money. But I get to play.
And, over the course of time, if one or two of your friends start enjoying it, they'll start buying their own warbands, etc. That's how 90% of the hobby works outside of the GW bubble.
I play different wargames because they give different experiences. I love the new edition of Age of Sigmar but I also play Old World, BattleLore, Heroscape and the Runewars Miniatures Game. I'll even get BattleMasters out if I have enough space and I'll have fun playing them all.
As the designer of the independent skirmish game Cursed Lands: Morgulia I just wanted to say Thank You for this video! Far too often, we've found dedicated wargamers to be almost completely unwilling to even try something that they don't already play; game stores as well. The best luck we've had has always been with people entirely new to the hobby and unrelayed venues as they have no narrow vestes interest against the new experience.
Currently play Warcry, Age of Sigmar and A Song of Ice and Fire. I plan on picking up Halo Flashpoint very soon for a shooting game as well. I actually love just looking up all the options out there and watching “learn to play” videos, I find it very interesting to see how different systems operate.
If the other, often historical miniature games hadn't existed, then 40K would never have been created. You're absolutely right, markets don't work without potential competition.
Wow, some people need to relax a bit. I love the imagination that I have seen for decades. So many genres, so many games. I love it. Some of which are so interesting, mindblowing and fun. They don't see that people (the market) decide what it likes and doesn't. Not corporates. And ultimately people - THESE ARE JUST GAMES! Chill people. Sit down roll some dice (or paint) and have some fun. The internet has given us so many options that we can try something new everyday and never come to the end in one lifetime. How is that bad. It means we can explore and try and just have some fun and we don't hurt anyone.
In my tight-knit gaming group, I'm the "Rules System Hoarder". I've loved introducing everyone to a large variety of campaign-based, miniatures-agnostic skirmish games over the years, and I often have to provide everything to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to play. The unfortunate side effect has been somewhat of a schism among our ranks, with some in the group refusing to play some systems, while jumping at the chance to play others. This has led to lower participation in some campaigns, with players sitting out for extended periods of time. ☹
I'm a solo wargamer, terrain maker, figure maker (homemade 2mm minis made from DAS air dry clay) and painter, not accountable to anyone, do what I want when I want. Bliss. Happy Christmas. Regards Lexi.
'Central authority' is both terrifying and hilarious. They sound like one of their beloved commissars. Worship the Emperor or die! Much as I love old Warhammer Fantasy and 40k, I'm not interested at all in the current era of GW games which, dare I say it, take themselves rather too seriously and have a corporate flavour rather than the fun, weird, punkish attitude than Warhammer used to have. It's not hard to find someone to play with if your focus is on gaming with friends, rather than prostrating yourself at the feet of the God Emperor. It's indies all the way for me.
Am I the only yahoo who isn't in an exclusive relationship with my war games? Having lots of games doesn't mean less customers. Customers can play multiple game in the same time period. GW is a big example of this, 40k universe has 5 games that I'm aware of. 40k, combat patrol, kill team, space hulk, and necromunda. Their fantasy has AoS, Old world, spearhead, warcry, underworld, and blood bowl. That's 11 games from 1 developer. I seem to be missing the commenter point.
I grew up playing historical miniatures and going to historical gaming conventions with my dad and his group. I have been exposed to dozens of rule sets for just American Civil War, let alone Napoleonic, Ancients, American Revolution, Naval, WWII. All of which ,as a group, they played. Some were great, others not so much. But that never stopped other groups from playing the rule sets they liked. I introduce my friends to new rule sets I pick up, we try them out, and if they are fun we play it again. Its like most things in the world, find the thing that fits the style you want to play and have some fun.
I love the fact there is so many choices it means I am not always building the same minis. Getting to learn new lore and settings. I love wild west exodus and that got me to branch into Judge dredd and conquest
Many people publishing their own ideas and putting them out there for others to see and use leads to innovation, improvement, and progress. As Patton said, “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” Like most other things in life, those who belittle and shun independent thinking are afraid of change for some reason.
For someone who only played 40k for so long. A Song of Ice and Fire the miniatures game is outstanding. Its my favourite game and has been for a good year now since I started playing ASOIAF
Excellent vid. The war gaming community would absolutely be dead if the only choice was the super toxic over competitive Warhammer community. I love skirmish games and choice and the greatest enjoyment is going to tournaments all over the Northeast and having the joy of playing whatever I want that's not Warhammer.
It's a bit funny, some people talk like there was no wargaming before GW. There was, mostly historical yes, but even back then there were several different games and companies who made the rules and were producing the miniatures. When I started with Warhammer Fantasy (I think it was their second ruleset for that), most of the wargaming market was covered by historical games. Mostly Napoleonic and WW2. At least I couldn't find something else. There was no Internet and my main source was my local hobby store. There were a lot of companies who only produced miniatures, which could be used for roleplaying, as proxies for wargames and just to collect them. However the difficulty to find someone to play your game was never really changing. Because you had private clubs and groups then the same way you have them nowadays. Back in the 90s you found that clubs through your hobby store, the main landing point were you could get in contact with others. Nowadays there is the internet, so, OK, yes it got a bit easier today. I do not see the message coming true that many different games are fractioning the communities. Yes, you maybe will not find people who play your game in your current community. But who stops you to introduce that rule system with models you already have and use them as proxies? If you are totally new to wargaming then you probably know already someone who introduced you to that. If not it should not be that hard to find someone in your local hobby store or on the internet to play with. And yes I am currently in the situation too, that I only find people who play WH40K and AOS, but that should not stop me having fun! I would like to play OPR or maybe Silver Bayonet. Maybe I will introduce that to the club where I am playing, maybe with WH40K miniatures. It should be possible to port the rules into a futuristic setting. Or to say the characters got in trouble and only found some old tech weapons... whatever. I still buy GW models because I like them. Not all of them! But some of them look really nice!
Can the Central Authority become a stample? I do think people feel they need to play all of those games. I think why not pick the models you like to play the games you like with lol
Well, that didn't turn out to be what I expected. Not Uncle Atom's position, that was very much what I expected. But the starting point of this video caught me off-guard. Anyway, the idea that there are many more wargames now then there were in the past is hilarious, because it's not true. On my bookshelf right now are: -Star Fleet Battles -Attack Vector -Saganami Island Tactical Simulator (ship combat in the Honor Harrington setting) -Heavy Gear -Gear Krieg -Stargrunt II -Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes -Dirtside II -Micro-Armor The Game -Victory At Sea -Disposable Heroes/Coffin for Seven Brothers -Gloire -.45 Adventure -Flint And Feather And all of those predate my divorce in 2008. I've since added: -X-Wing -Star Wars Armada -Terminator Genesys -Starship Troopers (admittedly, mostly for the minis) -Robotech RPG Tactics (entirely for the minis) And a bunch of pdf only games. I've played Battletech, Centurion, Squad Leader, Panzer!!, Leviathan, all of which date back to the 80s. There have always been *lots* of wargames. It's only GW's success at linking rules and minis that made it seem (for a time) that there weren't. The market isn't fracturing. It's always been this way, and anyone who believes the plethora of "indie" games is a new thing is a testament to GW's marketing success. Heck, even the *idea* of the self-published "indie" game isn't new - I have a game based on the battle of the Bulge that I got from my father; he bought it when he was in uni in the 60s. It's 5 pages that were composed on an honest-to-God *typewriter* and then photocopied and stapled and sold for 50 cents. All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again, and people really need to stop thinking GW is the only game in town.
If the only choice was Warhammer, I wouldn't be wargaming. It's atrocious, constant meta changing to feed a model purchase business model. If you want to roll a lot of dice, play Yahtzee or Tenzi. I'm glad the Warhammer folks only play Warhammer as they can annoy each other and leave the rest of us alone to enjoy great games, great friends and have great experiences.
Well said. Also, contrary to what the Central Authority wants, you can actually play other games with WH miniatures xD (Looking at my Multibased king of wars WH minis)
@@aranathalaconte1583 I do, I've got starstriders, tyrannids and chainrasps in my 5 Parsces and Silver bayonets universes. Get cool minis on the table, the plastic doesn't care and if you believe Toy Story they're just glad to be played with 😀
My favorite game is Firestorm Armada. I live the lore, the minis, and the factions! To this day I've yet to play a battle against another person. Sometimes that's just how it goes.
Absolutely fantastic video, and you're right on the money. Having so many games out there is a sign of a healthy gaming ecosystem. When you've only got one monolith/monopoly running the show then the system stagnates, creativity is stifled, and the playerbase becomes even more toxic than it can be. New is good, especially new from many different places. It gives us fresh voices & new ideas and progress where we haven't seen it before. The more games that get a chance to thrive, the better it is for all of us, and the better a wargame community as a whole grows.
GW is their own worst enemy. They charge an insane prohibitive price for their minis and thus push the majority of less financially liquid customers into the arms of other wargames
After looking at my piles of shame, I have to agree. It's not the number of games that's "too many". It is the hours of the day and days of the year that are too few.
I wasn't super into the idea of wargaming but Trench Crusade was such a compelling setting that it broke the ice, now I'm even looking at Warhammer when I had 0 interest before.
Nicely said. I agree with each of your points. Greater variety of choice = Better. Every time. Unless you're selling in a market, where greater variety of choice = fear of failure. As a consumer of cool little models to build, customize and paint, rather than actually play any wargame, my frustration is finding local shops willing to take risks on games like Malifaux, Wild West Exodus or Moonstone. Games Workshop offerings are readily available ( but strangely, rarely are there kits of models I want to build and paint) and often enough at a discount from MSRP. I know ebay and other online retailers usually offer what I'm jonesing for, but I would rather spend my money locally and preferably at independent retailers. In retail options, just like in market goods, greater variety equals better for consumers.
Kill Team and call to arms introduced me to the hobby, but my amazing paint group has introduced me to so much more. Now we are looking to start a burrows and Badgers group along with a mordheim group. Sure there are a lot of choices right now, but you don't have to play them all. Having this much variety is the reason I don't have to try and keep up with GW for kill team!
While listening to this video I was basing my night goblins AND my footsore miniatures vikings (just released via their latest KS) and looking forward to receiving Warlord games newest supplement for Wars of The Roses. I got a RICH hobby life. No time to play anything - but the projects keep coming and I'm a happy hobbyist. Sorry to hear that some folk are too locked into the GW-wheel
God only knows how many potential great colleagues in wargaming have we lost due to someone telling them they play the "wrong"game. Fully supporting your words here uncle Atom.
I’ve been saying “Too many games!” with my friends and family for a long time. Not because we want them to stop making games but just because there are so many good games out there and I don’t have time to play them all. I’d rather just have the power to stop time once in awhile so I can complete a few video games to catch up. And yes while 40K got me into the wargaming and painting hobby it is not what keeps me in the hobby. Solo games, skirmish games, and painting models are what keeps me in the hobby.
The portion of people who think 40k is the only game to play are usually the worst people to play against. They are normally really soar losers, don't allow new people to play with them, or know the game so well they make it not fun to play against.
Yep, and it's amusing because those exact people are the ones complaining about finding other people to game against...but can't figure out the common denominator in that situation.
Coming from more of a historical miniature background (but with a lot of fantasy and sci-fi too - but never the box games), it's a regular thing to go to generalist conventions (Historicon being the big American example, the UK has tons, here in Ontario it's Hotlead and CanGames) and see an amazing swirl of different periods and rules. While you wouldn't see it at a single convention, if you wanted to play Rome vs. Carthage, there's easily a couple hundred rulesets available to choose from, and a half-dozen scales. Everyone just works with it, and companies still put out figures and come up with new rules.
Great video. Small games can bend genres, which can lead to a discovery of whole new ways to play tabletop (I think about solo and coop play with 'AI' built into the rules, something that feels like it has grown a ton lately)
I think I am going to assembly a Human Inquisition team for Grimdark Future Firefight called the Central Authority! Also: “Will they beat Tay-Tay? Signs point to ‘no.’” As the father of two Swifties, that made me whole day, Uncle Atom. Thank you for that.
Minis agnostic games and having 2 armies/warbands has been the solution for me. The boys will nearly always play with me even though they aren't wargamers themselves but because I use these tools they're always down
The person who "all these indie companies will only have one customer each" is aware that you can play more than one game, right? Like, the feds aren't going to kick down your door for daring to play more than one miniatures game? But really, the people who say things like that are the same people who spout sunken cost fallacy nonsense. They're the person who goes "that game looks cool, but I can't justify getting into another game right now" as they hand the cashier their credit card to make a $600 purchase for two characters for their 40K army. And if 40K was the only option, or even just GW in general, I'd be out so quickly. They haven't proven to me that they can write good game systems consistently enough for me to stay in the hobby if they were the only choice.
I had people like that literally try to prevent me from homebrewing and making my own DnD system and try to contain me. 😂 It so bad I crave their dumbness. 😮😂😅🎉
Now because of life reasons, I switched over to paper doll miniatures and terrain. They are very inexpensive for what you get and you can make a printer go brrrrt to make a whole table of terrain and two separate forces. I'm not opposed to plastic minis, but its an easy way to get new players into a game
The feature of democratizing games and avoiding a central authority is that it can lead to a larger number of communities where everyone has a chance to find "their tribe" within the hobby they love.
Using the word indie for anyone publishing wargames related products other than GW just makes me laugh. I'm 60 and started wargaming before 40k even existed. So this idea that they are somehow the central authority is nonsense. In fact Rick Priestley who wrote the original 40k and warhammer fantasy has for many years been working outside of GW. At the end of the day the GW fan boys have no impact on my life so I will continue to pick and choose the games I wish to play myself, including GW ones. There is truth that there are many systems out there that will never get very far but so what at least the publishers are developing things for the rest of us and it just might be a hit.
a "central authority" is the last thing that comes to mind when I'm trying to relax and have a spot of fun.
Also would be highly unable to do anything. How are they going to do anything you cant ... ignore and set the dice to a omega level success 😂
That’s in the running for being the worst hobby take I’ve ever heard. The “central authority” thing. Not your comment.
@@jammywesty91 I just dont get how you would even enforce it? 😂
"Oi you got a license to play 40k?"
"Oi you got a license to be out of your grave copper!" 😂
I think this person just wanted a formal way to say "one game we all agree to play"
The "central authority" thing feels like the original commenter was a fan of failed Austrian painters tbh.
"There are too many wargames these days' is really code for "I can't find folks who play the game I want." Which I have sympathy for, but fewer games isn't the answer.
Or just GW brain washing.
Too many games might not be the only problem in finding opponents.
@@leesweeney8879Can you not try to push legitimate criticism away as "brainwashing"?
Which is especially crazy to me say considering they probably play 40K
I hear people have way too much trouble finding a DnD table they like and dont need to engage "Soapy Earth protocols" and all they have is - What edition you want to play? Officalish or Homebrew stuff?
Do you like the people at that group?
Meanwhile if I want to play X.. simply how many people who play wargames will simply not be interested in it? B i g variance.
I think the people leaving these comments like a “central authority” need to go have a long hard think, one of the craziest statements i’ve heard
Keep in mind these people have an agenda to put down other games. Remember that Trench Crusade creators upset the alt-right by telling them they weren't welcome when they tried to flood there during the Female custodes incident.
So they decreed that Trench Crusade was "woke" and thus they want it to fail.
These are the kind of people that want a "central authority"
Why is that? If one company has a sufficient portion of the market share- or more importantly, a larger share of the tables that have wargames happening on them - then their attitude and decisions will effect wargaming as a whole.
I think they just used a very odd sounding term there. The entire sentence can be interpreted in the way it´s being done in this video and yes, this way it seems rather questionable.
But it can be read in a deifferent way. Like "democratizing" the particular games within their particular communities. In that case, the "central authority" would just be a professional publisher. The publisher is responsible for lore, rules (the official ones for competitive), models etc. The opposite would be a game with an open-source-ish approach. I think (hope) the original comment was meant that way. It would at least make sense then in a way. The 40k community is somewhat cohesive and kinda "ruled" or at least moderated by GW. An indie-game published by one dude or a small team will most likely not be able to provide such community-building. So game "X" probably won´t have an "X"-community but multiple smaller groups with potentially various ideas of "X".
That resembles classic card games (the old ones, before there were brands and copyrights) like Canasta for example. I´m from southern Germany and here we have a game called "Schafkopf" (In the more "german" regions of the US, like Minnesota, the game "Sheepshead" is a variant of this). It derives from a certain form of card games that originated somewhat from the late 17th century. The basic rules are the same everywhre but basically every single town has its own variants of additional rules. There were many iterations of printed rules throughout the centuries but it took until 1989 for the competitive scene to adopt a unified set of rules by a "central authority". This authority is just a club of private people, so its "power" is nothing official, just something the scene agreed on. A bit like the founding of a commonwealth in John Lockes philosophy tbh.
This can obviously be a problem but it doesn´t have to be one. It depends on what you´re interested in. If you just want to play a fun game just for the fun of playing it, then there´s obviously nothing wrong with a fully democratized, decentralized,anarchic non-community.
If you´re looking for a fully franchise-backed game that´s massive enough to be an entire hobbyby itself, with tons of lore, international community and competitive scene etc., then a "central authority" (honestly a very odd wording) is required to manage that. An authority in the form of usually the publishing company with "power" regarding the published game, not gaming itself.
My guess is, that the original commentor just prefers games with a cohesive community and a publisher with the last word on official lore and rules. But for some reason they accidentally or intentionally phrased it very very odd and ambiguous.
@@eewweeppkk They're talking about an appointed authority that has control over the act of gaming to the point of issuing licences for GMs to run roleplaying games, and dictating the height of static grass on your mini bases, such as in Knights of the Dinner Table; not just some company that affects the market simply because it has the biggest share, thereby causing waves throughout the industry with its every move.
@thoughtengine Being an authority doesn't have to literally mean an appointed body. An authority can just be a knowledgeable or influential force. In this case, GW is probably the most influential force in wargaming for most wargamers. If they change how they do things, wargaming for most people will change and it will have bleed through effects on other games.
I think people freak out about the term central authority because they can't attach a shred of nuance to language. It doesn't need to be used in it's literal political context.
Preach it Adam! If 40k was the only show in town, I wouldn't be wargaming.
If everyone only played Warhammer, games workshop's anti customer behaviour would be 10x worse
Also many whould stop playing out of boredom after 18-36 months.
@@PMMagro Surprised it would take that long. I've seen my kids play WH, boring as ****, and long turns where one side effectively does very little. My boys now older, enjoy playing Quar, Silver bayonet, 7TV, Void Admiral, Song of Blades&..... We got some of their buddies around to play a sci fi (hover bikes) version of Faustus Furious, a miniatures chariot racing game. I've failed to paint a load of gladiator models to play Arena of Blood, perhaps Easter.
This is my experience of 40k too. The *idea* of 40k is awesome: huge armies clash on a cinematic table covered in beautifully crafted terrain; the *reality* is hours long turns spent messing around on your phone and occasionally rolling a saving throw.
I've played a couple of games where by turn two, I'm trying to find ways to lose the game so I can go home.
@@Mikey__R Table toss🤣
I'm paraphrasing here on your comment "Most folks make their indie wargame with no expectation of making into the next Warhammer, they just want someone to play it and enjoy it". This is the nail on the head. As someone who has made an indie game, we just want folks to give it a try. The creative journey is a fun part of the process and its very rewarding. Thanks for the video!
It'll never happen because its always been fragmented. There's Roman wargamers, Napoleonic wargamers, WWII wargamers. Games Workshop & the like are just a small time period wargame, there are many time periods.
Most Warhammer players don’t know anything about the roots of their hobby and don’t even know historical games exist. Except maybe Bolt Action these days…
Seriously, one GW gamer told me: ”I would like to play a WWII game, but they don’t exist.”
@@maxxon99 Also i kinda would say if they couldnt find people to play it... does the game exist to them?
If i want to make a Campaign game focused on purifying group and blasting gooey monsters but no one wants to play it, it unexists intill someone i can find nearby wants to play it.
Well are we doing 28mm Napoleonics or 15 or 10 or 6. And maybe we should spend 5 years to find the perfect rule set.
@@edevans5991oh jeez. Even if you stick to the MAJOR Napoleonic rules there are like 4 or 5 currently.
@@edevans5991 over 40 years and still searching but Command and Colours comes close.
This is the same mentality from the console wars. I spent a lot of money and time on my choice, so my choice must be the only correct one and all other choices must be opposed.
Come on, we all know the only true choice is to join the PC Master Race 😜
Seriously I have been through so many format wars I have a nervous tick about the subject
@jon-paulfilkins7820 I feel like the wargaming version of pcmasterrace is definitely 3d printer owners.
That just sounds like leftists in general lol.
@@Spongemonkey26 what's that got to do with the price of cheese, take your politics someplace someone cares.
@@basstedson But you didn't deny it!
Dudes, I play like 20 wargames... ADHD is my super power... and my group loves the variety!
Dude, same!
My rules book collection is quickly over taking my board game collection.
My WIP pile of shame is bigger than my fully painted collection.
My printed but not started painting pos is bigger than my WIP pile.
My printing backlog from patron subs (which I've now cancelled) is nearly a tb.
😂😂😂😂
Not diagnosed but there's indicators 😂😂
I like how even if 4 members had 4 different games to play.. why not play each of them over 4 sessions or 2 games for 2 sessions? 😂
Me too. Variety is the space of life…..and the spice must flow.
Me too, adhd is a real super power if it comes to painting, learning rules und building terrain😂
Well, hearing Uncle Atom say 'Tay Tay' was not on my 2024 bingo card.... but here we are......
bruh youre calling him uncle. Go outside sometime.
@@DaClaptain Really? Thanks for your contribution......
I would bet a lot of money, that the same people who want there to be a 'central authority' in gaming - also assume that that authority would recognise them as 'special' - and they would then promptly throw a fit every time the authority did something they didn't like.
10000000% this ☝️☝️
Said authority would only be valid only as long as it agreed with their idea of what’s correct.
It was the free rules release Osprey did of Frostgrave in the pandemic that got me back to wargames. When GW killed of WHFB I lost all illusion that they were a company that cared about their games or their customers, but living in the GW bubble I had no real idea of the other wargames that existed, so instead of switching to one of those I quit the hobby, and played board wargames (Sekigahara, the COIN series etc.) instead. Discovering Frostgrave has since led me to, unsurprisingly Rangers of Shadow Deep and the Silver Bayonet, but also to Forbidden Psalm and most recently Infinity. If it wasn't for these people offering alternatives to GW I wouldn't have this rich part of my life at all!
As a former East German, the phrase “central authority” fills me with dread.
You have a central authority now, it’s called the German Federal Government.
Not from east germany and the phrase “central authority” fills me with dread.
@@njbolt90 true but it doesn’t have that Stasi ring to it
When I stopped playing 40k my gaming group berated me endlessly saying my reasons for giving it up were stupid and I should stop trying to get other people to play other games because it would ruin the group. They banned other games from the group so I wished them well and left. It sucked but they were happy with 40k and I wasn’t. I joined another group that played a mix of mantic games and Dropzone Commander and it was more fun than I’d ever had wargaming in 40k. Mentioned it to a couple of the old group when we met in the LFGS and they asked for a demo of DZC. The next day I got an angry call from the organiser of the original group saying I was trying to break up their group, which I absolutely wasn’t. Some people just feel like “other games” are a threat. I think that’s because they know gw games rules suck and they are afraid people will move away from their preferred game setting, at least that’s what o think happened with this guy.
To a certain kind of person being the 'organiser' can be a position of power that they hold. By suggesting alternatives they can view that as you attempting to take their position of power for yourself. Normal folks don't take that into consideration because they just want to have fun and play games but it's often a reason for this kind of attitude.
I've been there. Another reason with Warhammer is "we spent so much money on it". They need other people to also spend that much money on it. That's not a problem with most other games, less with 3d printing
@@basstedson It's also that they're heavily invested in it and it's hard to admit that there is something better out there. It's the "member of a cult" issue
Definitely sunk cost fallacy. The time and money investment to get half of a 40k army ready is more than most people CAN do, so for those that have the ability to do so they still need to put so much of their effort and money forward to get it tabletop ready. If you spend Ober $500 and dozens of hours on the prep, you better believe you'd want to bust it out at every single opportunity and not want it's space shared with other things.
@eewweeppkk I had this, and when I left 40k, I was so much happier.
I spent a lot of moneybon 40k then hurricane maria hit Puerto Rico and i lost my home, so after thw hurricane i sold most of my 40k stuff for cheap since i needed the money 5 years later i tried to get back amd almost cried when i saw the pricing! I looked for cheaper alternatives and wound up playing Grimdark Future Firefight by One page rules perfect outcome since the rules are free and i can use what leftover minis i had left basically 40k has become anti poor, so I'm glad that there's alternatives to it in the market.
You still live in Puerto Rico? Let’s link up. I want to play Grimdark Firefight 🔥
@JackieRobinson24 where you from?
Ok we need to go meta - and make a skirmish game of wargames fighting each other
I used to own an Eldar Army and I sold it to get into Star Wars Legion. I only have a Clone Trooper army. I have thought of using my Clone Trooper Army as a proxy Eldar army. Or reinvest in Eldar and play them in Star Wars Legion.
That first take is fucking wild.
LMFAO.
Yep, whoever typed that is a very good, well-behaved citizen and believes everything they see on the media...woof.
@@oskar6661 Proper and subservient party member, Comrade...
As the local pusher of new games at a predominantly 40k focused club there's a few things I've noticed that tend to be common elements.
The first is sunk cost. Not just in money (and let's be clear it's a lot of money) but also time. If you've spent all your childhood playing one game or enjoying one setting people are often afraid to leave that bubble. Not just because they might not like it, actually the opposite. People are often afraid that if they like another game they've "wasted" all that time and effort on the "wrong" game.
The second is the fear of finding someone to play with. I guess this is almost the opposite of the first issue. If you get into a new game, buy all the models, learn all the rules, and then no one else picks it up that's also "wasted" effort. Again its a fear the've picked the "wrong" game.
The thing is, there is no wrong game. Every wargame is good at different things, and they evoke different feelings when playing them. It's like movies. Sure you might love Star Wars, but is Star Wars the entirety of your film consumption? No, of course not. With wargames if you just play 40k forever you're just watching the metaphorical Star Wars on repeat. It's very telling that when you do manage to convince someone to try something else they more or less immediately start playing 12 other games at the same time.Sometimes, you do want Star Wars, sometimes you want Saving Private Ryan and crack out flames of war (or chain of command, or bolt actions and so on.)
Something GW has become very good at is bombarding players with updates and new releases. It takes a lot to keep on top of 40k, for example (See for example the current deluge of detachments) and this pushes the idea that all games are like that and if you wanted to pick up another game, well now that's twice the effort needed! This obviously isn''t true, even amongst other GW titles. Middile Earth is getting a new edition in a few days but the changes are extremely minor. If you've played it before you could have the changes explained to you in a few paragraphs. Even competitively driven games like infinity or Conquest only have updates twice a year or so. This isn't even to touch on complete games. As someone who loves indie wargames (I've even written and published a few) to me it goes back to that movie analogy. Having this vast library of games on your digital shelf is like going to your big shelf of DVDs (or hard drives I guess) and deciding what kind of experience you want for that evening.
To address one of the questions asked, yeah, you need to sometimes be the one providing both armies. As Adam mentioned for skirmish games this is easy, but even for bigger games it's still relatively cheap compared to the big alternatives. You can get entire Kings of War, Bolt Action, flames of war, even GW's own middle Earth armies for less than a single 40k unit. Doing both sides is very, very common in historical communities because they've been doing this a hell of a lot longer and are kind of proof that tons of games doesn't hurt. If you're interested in doing say, the American Revolution here in the UK, you're not going to be able to find someone as easy as doing Waterloo or the English Civil war, but if you rock up to the local historical club with both sides and a rulebook for whatever ruleset you want and ask someone to play, they're probably going to say "Hell yeah sounds sick" or whatever the kids say nowadays. (Kids play these games, right?)
The last point (and I'm certain that a bunch of those comments are from these guys) is that there's a subset of people who, for a bunch of reasons, make a particular game their entire personality. They're "the 40k guy" or the "AOS guys" or whatever. They eat, sleep and breath that particular game. The kind of guy who when you strike up a casual conversation will go off about list ideas or something. It's hard sometimes to tell the line between someone who just enjoys a game and someone who makes it their personality, but you get a feel for it after trying to advocate any other game for a while. These people are lost causes, you're never going to get them to even try another game.
Oh hey, I should probably point out that I am an indie game creator. I made D-Day Paratroopers: Behind the Atlantic Wall. A solo miniatures agnostic wargame. You play it as a campaign where each campaign turn (so 1 battle/mission) takes half an hour and you start with your Paratrooper landing in Normandy at midnight. You have to scramble to your rally point, collect friendly soldiers using your Cricket, try to avoid running into any enemy patrols, take out enemy outposts and travel to your Primary Objective: the guns overlooking Omaha and Utah beaches.
You remember the second or third episode of Band of Brothers? Well, you get to PLAY Band of Brothers.
It's on WargmeVault
No I'm not trying to topple GW or Warlord Games for that matter. Heck, I bought a BUNCH of Bolt Action minis to playtest this.
I think the abundance and variety makes *this* the "golden age" of wargames. There *is* such a thing as "glutting the market", but I have confidence in "survival of the fittest" preventing an overall market collapse. My 2 cents...
I can’t believe you even had to make this video. I LOVE having so many options. Competition is good in every market. For example, the garbage that is EA Sports NFL/college video games is the direct result of not having to compete. They can just spew out game after game, year after year without even trying to bring their best. Why would they if the profit margins are there and they’ll always have an audience that has ZERO other option?
As well, more games means better/improved mechanisms, variety in the game’s themes, and options for people with DIFFERENT BUDGETS.
Keep the vids coming UNC!!!
This video was excellent. The idea that there is too much choice is ridiculous. More choice means you can't get ripped off by excessive prices or bad products. Everyone has to improve their products to survive in a competitive market.
This "single game" concept from the Warhammer 40,000 crowd is hilarious. The first wargame I played was Star Fleet Battles, which got me into the gaming store. There, I got a chance to play miniature Napoleonic wargaming. That got me into buying, painting, and using miniatures for my D&D campaign, with the figures on the map adding to the experiences of battles. From there, I saw miniatures being painted and used to play Warhammer, the original fantasy-based game. That was in 1983. It was only later, just before I enlisted and went into the military, that 40K came out, and it wasn't until the following year that I even saw anyone play it.
Only in the naivete of youth who lack a memory going back to the pre-40K throne even believe that 40K is the "original" wargame and thus should be the "one and only."
I love living in the golden age of wargaming. Exploring all the different rulebooks is fun and interesting even if you never play the game.
As for cool new minis, we can never have enough of those, right?
"There are too many FPS games... There sould just be CoD! Oh and too many types of food too. Everything should just be burgers and fries".
"There too many ugly guys so they should be cute anime girls i can add to my h a r e m" 😂 basically
I find it amazing how ingrained the zero sum assumption is in this day and age. More than two things can be popular at once and be good.
Competition is good, choice is good, free will is good. Those things drive innovation, drive creativity, and potentially fun.
What I am hearing is people informing other people that they are having fun wrong. Just roll dice and have fun, does it really matter how?
A good video, that every wargamer should watch. I'm always amazed by the sheer amount of subservience I find in many wargamers (at least online, I don't attend events and only play with friends) when it comes to the topic "how much should we follow a company". I mean, the whole benefit of living in a market economy (with its many problems) is that it offers so much variety that basically anyone can find something that fits his needs/tastes. Moreover, this means that you can't be forced by the will of a single actor (unless you enjoy that), because you'll always have an alternative. And this provides the consumer/player with leverage, because otherwise the company would hold him in its grip. Now, many players seem instead to enjoy doing only one thing (not a bad thing in itself), but some of them go further and seem to enjoy crushing other players' choices, always defending a company practices even when it is evident that they are not exactly in favor of the consumer/player. From the outside, they look like thralls/pawns of the company. And comments like the one you mentioned at the start of your video point towards that idea.
So I'm glad that someone like you, who has a very good following and can communicate so well, can shed some light on the subject and maybe bring some common sense into their minds, because for people like me, who seem to always be at the end of those thralls' stick, it kind of gets frustrating facing always the same complaints from them. Thank you, Uncle Atom.
I think you are correct.
I also think the subservience comes from that self-deprecating and isolationist point of view that many tabletop gamers face from growing up in a society that often attacks difference and intelligence.
You often hear people talking about their love for games as a kid and then getting to their late teens and feeling the need to bend to what they see as societal norms. It's normally accompanied by the phrases "act cool", "impress girls", "beer", "parties", etc. Then many of us come back to it later on in life when we feel more self-confident or no longer care what society wants us to do. I know it is getting a lot better now gaming is far more normal, but it's still there for many people. I mean when I was a kid no one would dare admit they liked D&D, but now it seems everyone wants to play it or has played it. If you talk to my parent's generation they still sneer and talk about games (video and tabletop) like we are in the 60s or something bonkers - the games industry is bigger than the film and music industry combined, especially when you point out sports are games. Thankfully I have some younger family members who were asking me about TTRPGs in their teens because of Stranger Things and the fact that almost all current computer games can site D&D as an ancestor somewhere down the family tree.
But, to get back to the point. I think for some, lonely gamers, they never get the chance to find a comfortable space to be themselves and play the games they want to. They simply embrace the conservative views about life and tabletop games not being "cool" or "ok" for an adult to do. So they turn to online spaces to convey their anger at not being able to be themselves in public because no one is like them. And they hope more people would play that one big game, so that they too might be seen as cool for wanting to play that game and in doing so find someone to play with, but it's all mixed up with a lot of negative thoughts. The amount of comments I see online about people who want solo-play versions of a game because they have no one to play with really backs this up, especially when you add in the comments that Adam mentions in this video.
Sadly some people just need to be brave and travel to a games club or set one up and start trying new things and meeting new people. Humanity is amazing because it's so creative and diverse in its creativity and that is reflected in our market economy. But if we, humans, don't socialise enough our creativity can lead us to toxic creations that don't help us or anyone around us. I think that is what we are seeing in the comments Adam highlighted today.
Sorry for the long ramble. TLDR: I agree with you and think it comes from a bunch of negative aspects of society and the pressure it can put on people to conform.
My the DnD people are even worst, they are ENCOURAGING wotc to put mind control spells in the books so you are forced to pay for their AI DM because... running dnd is hard and how dare you alter the rules? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I been documeting these weirdos debased attempt to sell our free wills and man, just patheic. 😂
I personally say it a thing of domination. They are losers and given a mote of power, they want to dominate, brainwash and control people because they can.
2:41 in many ways “everyone writing their own rules and making their own models” is a return to form. From what I understand, that was the norm for war gamers in the 60s and 70s, before GW and other companies came into the scene. Dave had his French and Russian Napoleonic armies, and people went over to Dave’s basement and played with Dave’s Napoleonic rules.
Anyone who touts any GW game as the pinnacle of wargaming is a muppet.
Games Workshop do not even tout themselves as a gaming company! Their statements all refer to them being a miniatures company! Not a wargaming company!
The cult vibe is real with GW.
I agree . If you take the cool models and lore away and you're left with a bloated game with people throwing boat loads of dice at each other (with all the dice mods that go with it) with a premium price tag . Don't get me wrong , I'm no elitist and people enjoy what they enjoy , but I've played a lot of games since quitting 40k back in 7th and can honestly say I've played a lot of games that are better than anything GW has to offer
@@garypeyman932 I've struggled to find a game worse than WH.
Nah, OPR players are the cult ones lol. They mention it anytime you talk at Warhammer, even when it makes no sense (talking about rules being dumbed down, then somehow suggesting OPR as an alternative)
@@DrakonPhD trauma victims often talk like that 😂
Keen to see how Trench Crusade manifests in the community
@@garypeyman932Warhammer 2nd Edition review in WD66 1985 commented on the game being a bucket'o'dice athon. They've never moved away from that.
I broke free of Warhammer and it’s been so nice to try out other war games. It’s a breath of fresh air.
Most of these arguments seem more like "I need someone to impose control on everyone to overlord MY lack of self control".
Personally, I don't need less games. If too many games was the problem, GW is guilty of it on an internal basis too, right now. What I do need is the groups I actually game with to stop chasing the plastic squirrels of the moment-
'We're playing Horus Heresy!'
Cool, got an army.
'Uh, we're playing Old World!'
Ok, watched a few games, now I'm getting some Bretonians.
'Hey, I did this kickstarter 4 years ago and it came in.'
Ok..
'Holy shit, these Trench Crusade models are sick.'
Yeah...
'I really want to run a Necromunda Campaign'.
[gazes forlornly over my Imperial Army and Death Guard. While also realizing I was one of the people who really wanted to play Imperialis]
-And now we're not playing anything. That's not because there are too many games, it's because WE can't make a damn decision.
agree with this to a point. I think those people do want imposing overlord but only for their game. If the authority was for another game thats not the top pick they would lose their minds over it and scream about it. A lot of people love strong authority when they agree with it.
i just want less gw im sick of them, im sick of every you tuber talking about them and im sick of everything being about them. I still love 40k. but its crap at this point.
@@ThePlayplay64 for me i hate 40k Imperium and Choas because they are cringe, ineffective and most people who like them would get put into concrete 😂
I like 40k because of the Emperor's gambit to beat the Writers and he almost won x2 😂
Just imagine if that Hickman guy wrote thr Emperor story. Also i love the Shaman origin since it is so based
@@Subject_Keter I like SM, i have my own home brew chapter im working on. For me i remember my brother painting them at the kitchen table when i was very little. 40k has been in my life from my earliest memories. 40k, MTG and D&D are how i learned math , read and write ect. so im very biased on it. There are many things in the lore i hate, but one thing i do love is everything sucks. I love that the setting , I love how awful humanity is. I like alot of the older stuff. Now, there is so much of it that ive lost touched 100+ books is not my thing. But i can say, i dont like how soft and .. odd things are looking and seeming. Alot of the art work does not do it for me and some of the things i hear about from others dont sound very 40k to me. Im not sure if I fall into the "most people" category for you. But as much as i love SM and the imperium for how much they suck. I am sick of them and the minis for them. I want to see more xeno and real chaos. Chaos can be so messed up and phycological torcher that i want to see. Im sad we dont get to see that.
@@ThePlayplay64 This is going to be the weirdest complain about why I dont like 40k... but everything feels inorganic and "clean" for a thing that should be messy.
"We need the eldar because some people like them"
"Chaos should be strong but.. not too strong or organized"
"The tau need to be e d g y so people can hate them more"
I feel like 40k could of been alot more fun if they didnt decide to flush all those weird xenos down the drain. Instead of having like 10 groups, imagine if there was like 20 or 30 groups.
It like they use the kid gloves but claim to be all this and that, it creates a strange paradime where everything is on the table beside what they need for new creations.
Still like it more then other stuff but it very.. conflicted?
Interesting points from Uncle. Always good to have a discussion even about seemingly obvious topics.
This is why I love games with solo rules. I don’t have to convince anyone else to play “my game”
3:45, war hammer will never be as big as tic tac toe! 😂
Even GW alone already makes more games than many are willing to buy/ learn/ play. It's not just indie companies. Ex. I've had to buy enough Adeptus Titanicus to cover my own army and any prospective opponents. According to my FLGS, there's only one other guy I've yet to meet who also buys AT from them.
Thank goodness that there are others, like you Adam, who post 'mind opening' clips like this!
I am 66, now recently retired, have been screaming for 50+ years! I have played so many different games over that time, table top, miniatures, hex and counter, and board games.
Based upon that experience, IMHO, one of the major pitfalls with GW products,his that it often creates blinkered neophytes! They no longer see the wood for the trees! Their boat is just fine,who don't rock it! They can become dictatorial, much like the rules sets produced by GW.
Carry on the great work Adam.
👍😉🍻
Sorry! Wargaming, NOT screaming. Can autotext! AI, my backside!!!😡
Gol Durn Hippie! That there is wot you are! 😉
I like the choice given by multiple games and miniature suppliers. I collect more than I paint, and I paint more than I play. My IG army is mostly non-GW minis because there are so many great looking minis out there from WGA, Fireforge, Victoria, etc. I just ordered some Ooh-Rah and Bulldogs kits which look like they are going to be a hoot to build, convert, and paint. MaxMini has an excellent tank Christmas box right now that is extremely affordable and I was thinking about picking up.
There are also too many RUclips channels. We should all just watch one so we're on the same page.
... morons.
Should just get rid of the ines like Pointy Hat, You would be a harris supporter and the ones trying to sell you stuff.🎉
I look at other war games, to see the game mechanics and how things interact. these games also give me fresh ideas for the games that I actually play.
So some people think it would be a better world if we got rid of most games so we could all focus on n one or two? Ok , lets start by scrapping everything by GW , that'd instantly improve the hobby scene . Biggest doesn't mean best . McDonald's is the biggest name in thefast food industry but overall its just crappy food whose only real saving grace is its easy to find . Imagine taking maccys out of the picture . All of those little places that make great food with real passion suddenly get to flourish as all the people who only ever had McDonald's suddenly discover these great little businesses . Biggest doesn't mean best
I wanted to play Mordheim. A year ago I started painting up warbands and getting terrain. Now I have enough that I can invite friends over and they can play a game with me. Their investment has been the time to learn and play the game. Mine has been a lot of time and money. But I get to play.
And, over the course of time, if one or two of your friends start enjoying it, they'll start buying their own warbands, etc. That's how 90% of the hobby works outside of the GW bubble.
I play different wargames because they give different experiences. I love the new edition of Age of Sigmar but I also play Old World, BattleLore, Heroscape and the Runewars Miniatures Game. I'll even get BattleMasters out if I have enough space and I'll have fun playing them all.
As the designer of the independent skirmish game Cursed Lands: Morgulia I just wanted to say Thank You for this video! Far too often, we've found dedicated wargamers to be almost completely unwilling to even try something that they don't already play; game stores as well. The best luck we've had has always been with people entirely new to the hobby and unrelayed venues as they have no narrow vestes interest against the new experience.
This is the same as some D&D players that don't give other tabletop rpgs a chance. I guess there are really just some people like that 🤷
I literally ran into a person DEMANDING to sue me for making DnD better 😂
Currently play Warcry, Age of Sigmar and A Song of Ice and Fire. I plan on picking up Halo Flashpoint very soon for a shooting game as well. I actually love just looking up all the options out there and watching “learn to play” videos, I find it very interesting to see how different systems operate.
"F**k wargame authority" - Pennywise, 2001
Strangely enough, I've never really considered printing and painting both sides for a game. Why not? This got me thinking. Thanks!
If the other, often historical miniature games hadn't existed, then 40K would never have been created.
You're absolutely right, markets don't work without potential competition.
Wow, some people need to relax a bit. I love the imagination that I have seen for decades. So many genres, so many games. I love it. Some of which are so interesting, mindblowing and fun. They don't see that people (the market) decide what it likes and doesn't. Not corporates. And ultimately people - THESE ARE JUST GAMES! Chill people. Sit down roll some dice (or paint) and have some fun. The internet has given us so many options that we can try something new everyday and never come to the end in one lifetime. How is that bad. It means we can explore and try and just have some fun and we don't hurt anyone.
In my tight-knit gaming group, I'm the "Rules System Hoarder". I've loved introducing everyone to a large variety of campaign-based, miniatures-agnostic skirmish games over the years, and I often have to provide everything to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to play.
The unfortunate side effect has been somewhat of a schism among our ranks, with some in the group refusing to play some systems, while jumping at the chance to play others. This has led to lower participation in some campaigns, with players sitting out for extended periods of time. ☹
I'm a solo wargamer, terrain maker, figure maker (homemade 2mm minis made from DAS air dry clay) and painter, not accountable to anyone, do what I want when I want. Bliss. Happy Christmas. Regards Lexi.
'Central authority' is both terrifying and hilarious. They sound like one of their beloved commissars. Worship the Emperor or die! Much as I love old Warhammer Fantasy and 40k, I'm not interested at all in the current era of GW games which, dare I say it, take themselves rather too seriously and have a corporate flavour rather than the fun, weird, punkish attitude than Warhammer used to have. It's not hard to find someone to play with if your focus is on gaming with friends, rather than prostrating yourself at the feet of the God Emperor. It's indies all the way for me.
we need a "central authority" to decide who will be in the "central authority"
We'll need a meeting for the meeting to construct the Central Authority after we've vetted the team responsible for vetting the Central Authority...
The only authority i need was already installed into me at birth. 😂
I got the special "ya nah" veto function and the will to use it.🎉
Am I the only yahoo who isn't in an exclusive relationship with my war games?
Having lots of games doesn't mean less customers. Customers can play multiple game in the same time period.
GW is a big example of this, 40k universe has 5 games that I'm aware of. 40k, combat patrol, kill team, space hulk, and necromunda. Their fantasy has AoS, Old world, spearhead, warcry, underworld, and blood bowl.
That's 11 games from 1 developer. I seem to be missing the commenter point.
I grew up playing historical miniatures and going to historical gaming conventions with my dad and his group. I have been exposed to dozens of rule sets for just American Civil War, let alone Napoleonic, Ancients, American Revolution, Naval, WWII. All of which ,as a group, they played. Some were great, others not so much. But that never stopped other groups from playing the rule sets they liked. I introduce my friends to new rule sets I pick up, we try them out, and if they are fun we play it again. Its like most things in the world, find the thing that fits the style you want to play and have some fun.
I love the fact there is so many choices it means I am not always building the same minis. Getting to learn new lore and settings. I love wild west exodus and that got me to branch into Judge dredd and conquest
Many people publishing their own ideas and putting them out there for others to see and use leads to innovation, improvement, and progress. As Patton said, “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” Like most other things in life, those who belittle and shun independent thinking are afraid of change for some reason.
For someone who only played 40k for so long. A Song of Ice and Fire the miniatures game is outstanding. Its my favourite game and has been for a good year now since I started playing ASOIAF
6:20 - oh ghee! Could you imagine if we only had GW paints to use? Uhg! The GW staff don't limit themselves to only that!
Excellent vid. The war gaming community would absolutely be dead if the only choice was the super toxic over competitive Warhammer community. I love skirmish games and choice and the greatest enjoyment is going to tournaments all over the Northeast and having the joy of playing whatever I want that's not Warhammer.
My only "problem" with so many currently available, cool looking wargames is the time to play them all. I think that choice is a good thing.
Don't forget money and storage. They factor in for me loads
@@kudosbudo ugh, yeah, storage is a huge one. ;)
It's a bit funny, some people talk like there was no wargaming before GW. There was, mostly historical yes, but even back then there were several different games and companies who made the rules and were producing the miniatures. When I started with Warhammer Fantasy (I think it was their second ruleset for that), most of the wargaming market was covered by historical games. Mostly Napoleonic and WW2. At least I couldn't find something else. There was no Internet and my main source was my local hobby store.
There were a lot of companies who only produced miniatures, which could be used for roleplaying, as proxies for wargames and just to collect them.
However the difficulty to find someone to play your game was never really changing. Because you had private clubs and groups then the same way you have them nowadays. Back in the 90s you found that clubs through your hobby store, the main landing point were you could get in contact with others. Nowadays there is the internet, so, OK, yes it got a bit easier today.
I do not see the message coming true that many different games are fractioning the communities. Yes, you maybe will not find people who play your game in your current community. But who stops you to introduce that rule system with models you already have and use them as proxies?
If you are totally new to wargaming then you probably know already someone who introduced you to that. If not it should not be that hard to find someone in your local hobby store or on the internet to play with. And yes I am currently in the situation too, that I only find people who play WH40K and AOS, but that should not stop me having fun! I would like to play OPR or maybe Silver Bayonet. Maybe I will introduce that to the club where I am playing, maybe with WH40K miniatures. It should be possible to port the rules into a futuristic setting. Or to say the characters got in trouble and only found some old tech weapons... whatever.
I still buy GW models because I like them. Not all of them! But some of them look really nice!
Can the Central Authority become a stample?
I do think people feel they need to play all of those games. I think why not pick the models you like to play the games you like with lol
Well, that didn't turn out to be what I expected. Not Uncle Atom's position, that was very much what I expected. But the starting point of this video caught me off-guard.
Anyway, the idea that there are many more wargames now then there were in the past is hilarious, because it's not true. On my bookshelf right now are:
-Star Fleet Battles
-Attack Vector
-Saganami Island Tactical Simulator (ship combat in the Honor Harrington setting)
-Heavy Gear
-Gear Krieg
-Stargrunt II
-Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes
-Dirtside II
-Micro-Armor The Game
-Victory At Sea
-Disposable Heroes/Coffin for Seven Brothers
-Gloire
-.45 Adventure
-Flint And Feather
And all of those predate my divorce in 2008. I've since added:
-X-Wing
-Star Wars Armada
-Terminator Genesys
-Starship Troopers (admittedly, mostly for the minis)
-Robotech RPG Tactics (entirely for the minis)
And a bunch of pdf only games.
I've played Battletech, Centurion, Squad Leader, Panzer!!, Leviathan, all of which date back to the 80s.
There have always been *lots* of wargames. It's only GW's success at linking rules and minis that made it seem (for a time) that there weren't. The market isn't fracturing. It's always been this way, and anyone who believes the plethora of "indie" games is a new thing is a testament to GW's marketing success. Heck, even the *idea* of the self-published "indie" game isn't new - I have a game based on the battle of the Bulge that I got from my father; he bought it when he was in uni in the 60s. It's 5 pages that were composed on an honest-to-God *typewriter* and then photocopied and stapled and sold for 50 cents.
All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again, and people really need to stop thinking GW is the only game in town.
If the only choice was Warhammer, I wouldn't be wargaming. It's atrocious, constant meta changing to feed a model purchase business model. If you want to roll a lot of dice, play Yahtzee or Tenzi. I'm glad the Warhammer folks only play Warhammer as they can annoy each other and leave the rest of us alone to enjoy great games, great friends and have great experiences.
Well said. Also, contrary to what the Central Authority wants, you can actually play other games with WH miniatures xD (Looking at my Multibased king of wars WH minis)
@@aranathalaconte1583 I do, I've got starstriders, tyrannids and chainrasps in my 5 Parsces and Silver bayonets universes. Get cool minis on the table, the plastic doesn't care and if you believe Toy Story they're just glad to be played with 😀
Quite literally the only reason i walked into a WH store was to find which models i want to use for DnD ❤
@@Subject_Keter Was your search successful?
@@argy8141Tyranids fit well in 5 parsecs
Ohh god! A Central Authority for wargaming.
If we only had Games Workshop (picking one large manufacturer as an example), I would not be wargaming.
Bless you for having so much patience.
My favorite game is Firestorm Armada. I live the lore, the minis, and the factions! To this day I've yet to play a battle against another person. Sometimes that's just how it goes.
Absolutely fantastic video, and you're right on the money. Having so many games out there is a sign of a healthy gaming ecosystem. When you've only got one monolith/monopoly running the show then the system stagnates, creativity is stifled, and the playerbase becomes even more toxic than it can be.
New is good, especially new from many different places. It gives us fresh voices & new ideas and progress where we haven't seen it before.
The more games that get a chance to thrive, the better it is for all of us, and the better a wargame community as a whole grows.
GW is their own worst enemy. They charge an insane prohibitive price for their minis and thus push the majority of less financially liquid customers into the arms of other wargames
I love how an intellectual slap from Uncle Adam feels like a hug somehow.
There’s never “too many” games.
Oh no I have way too many varied and fun games to play, woe is me!
@ it’s a hard life but someone has to live it.
Its a curse, A CURSE , I TELL THEE!
After looking at my piles of shame, I have to agree. It's not the number of games that's "too many". It is the hours of the day and days of the year that are too few.
@@Mercenary0712 Unironically my wallet seeing me buy minis for yet another game when I still haven't finished painting the minis I bought last time...
I wasn't super into the idea of wargaming but Trench Crusade was such a compelling setting that it broke the ice, now I'm even looking at Warhammer when I had 0 interest before.
Do yourself a favor...do not start Warhammer.
This just smacks of "i can't find or make friends in the game I play". You might be THAT guy in the store.
Nicely said. I agree with each of your points. Greater variety of choice = Better. Every time. Unless you're selling in a market, where greater variety of choice = fear of failure. As a consumer of cool little models to build, customize and paint, rather than actually play any wargame, my frustration is finding local shops willing to take risks on games like Malifaux, Wild West Exodus or Moonstone. Games Workshop offerings are readily available ( but strangely, rarely are there kits of models I want to build and paint) and often enough at a discount from MSRP. I know ebay and other online retailers usually offer what I'm jonesing for, but I would rather spend my money locally and preferably at independent retailers. In retail options, just like in market goods, greater variety equals better for consumers.
“Central authority”, ha! Frantically flushing my Turnip 28 miniatures down the toilet while the GW Chappie robots kick down my door.
Kill Team and call to arms introduced me to the hobby, but my amazing paint group has introduced me to so much more.
Now we are looking to start a burrows and Badgers group along with a mordheim group.
Sure there are a lot of choices right now, but you don't have to play them all. Having this much variety is the reason I don't have to try and keep up with GW for kill team!
"Central Authority", HA! that was a good one 😂
my take is that I paint up enough warbands for my odd wargame and then just provide warbands for other players.
While listening to this video I was basing my night goblins AND my footsore miniatures vikings (just released via their latest KS) and looking forward to receiving Warlord games newest supplement for Wars of The Roses. I got a RICH hobby life. No time to play anything - but the projects keep coming and I'm a happy hobbyist.
Sorry to hear that some folk are too locked into the GW-wheel
God only knows how many potential great colleagues in wargaming have we lost due to someone telling them they play the "wrong"game. Fully supporting your words here uncle Atom.
Thank you for doing these videos. I really look forward to them.
I’ve been saying “Too many games!” with my friends and family for a long time. Not because we want them to stop making games but just because there are so many good games out there and I don’t have time to play them all. I’d rather just have the power to stop time once in awhile so I can complete a few video games to catch up.
And yes while 40K got me into the wargaming and painting hobby it is not what keeps me in the hobby. Solo games, skirmish games, and painting models are what keeps me in the hobby.
The portion of people who think 40k is the only game to play are usually the worst people to play against. They are normally really soar losers, don't allow new people to play with them, or know the game so well they make it not fun to play against.
Yep, and it's amusing because those exact people are the ones complaining about finding other people to game against...but can't figure out the common denominator in that situation.
@oskar6661 I agree 110%
So, when are we getting an 'Approved by the Central Authority' t-shirt?
Back when I was starting out in the wargaming hobby (I'm 58) I brought my 1st copy of battletech from a games workshop shop with some metal minis
Coming from more of a historical miniature background (but with a lot of fantasy and sci-fi too - but never the box games), it's a regular thing to go to generalist conventions (Historicon being the big American example, the UK has tons, here in Ontario it's Hotlead and CanGames) and see an amazing swirl of different periods and rules. While you wouldn't see it at a single convention, if you wanted to play Rome vs. Carthage, there's easily a couple hundred rulesets available to choose from, and a half-dozen scales. Everyone just works with it, and companies still put out figures and come up with new rules.
Great video. Small games can bend genres, which can lead to a discovery of whole new ways to play tabletop (I think about solo and coop play with 'AI' built into the rules, something that feels like it has grown a ton lately)
I think I am going to assembly a Human Inquisition team for Grimdark Future Firefight called the Central Authority!
Also: “Will they beat Tay-Tay? Signs point to ‘no.’” As the father of two Swifties, that made me whole day, Uncle Atom. Thank you for that.
If the Central Authority approved Space Hulk and actually let's us buy it I'm all in for our jackbooted game overlords!
Minis agnostic games and having 2 armies/warbands has been the solution for me. The boys will nearly always play with me even though they aren't wargamers themselves but because I use these tools they're always down
The person who "all these indie companies will only have one customer each" is aware that you can play more than one game, right? Like, the feds aren't going to kick down your door for daring to play more than one miniatures game?
But really, the people who say things like that are the same people who spout sunken cost fallacy nonsense. They're the person who goes "that game looks cool, but I can't justify getting into another game right now" as they hand the cashier their credit card to make a $600 purchase for two characters for their 40K army.
And if 40K was the only option, or even just GW in general, I'd be out so quickly. They haven't proven to me that they can write good game systems consistently enough for me to stay in the hobby if they were the only choice.
I had people like that literally try to prevent me from homebrewing and making my own DnD system and try to contain me. 😂
It so bad I crave their dumbness. 😮😂😅🎉
But the Central Authority *would* be kicking down your door for playing unapproved games!!!!!!
@@mollymetroid I stand in defiance of the central authority!
2 player under 100 is an awesome resource
The more future gamers we can siphon from GW's black hole of mediocrity, the better!
I've not played a GW game since Gorkamorka was new, and I don't see myself ever going back.
Great video! Easy to just go along with what your friends are doing. And you want to plan ahead with agnostic figs
Now because of life reasons, I switched over to paper doll miniatures and terrain. They are very inexpensive for what you get and you can make a printer go brrrrt to make a whole table of terrain and two separate forces. I'm not opposed to plastic minis, but its an easy way to get new players into a game
Maybe it's just me... but my guts says empowering an all powerful "authority" telling what you can and can't do... would end badly.
The feature of democratizing games and avoiding a central authority is that it can lead to a larger number of communities where everyone has a chance to find "their tribe" within the hobby they love.
Using the word indie for anyone publishing wargames related products other than GW just makes me laugh.
I'm 60 and started wargaming before 40k even existed. So this idea that they are somehow the central authority is nonsense.
In fact Rick Priestley who wrote the original 40k and warhammer fantasy has for many years been working outside of GW.
At the end of the day the GW fan boys have no impact on my life so I will continue to pick and choose the games I wish to play myself, including GW ones.
There is truth that there are many systems out there that will never get very far but so what at least the publishers are developing things for the rest of us and it just might be a hit.