Weekender: Infinity In 2016 & Organised Play
February 20, 2016 by dignity
We've got another great Weekender for you today. Carlos has been in the studio from Corvus Belli and he has been sharing thoughts on Infinity in 2016...
What To Check Out
As always it's time to trawl the site for some of the best things to check out...
- Force-On-Force - Get stuck into our awesome modern warfare series every Monday.
- Mennes' Miniature Mash-Up - Want to work on tweaking your models? Check out this series.
- Photographing Miniatures - Carlos shares his thoughts on how best to photograph your models.
- Wolsung Battle Report - Catch up on the Scylla Vs Ash & Oak Club clash from this week.
What did we miss?
News Time
Catch up on some of the news we picked out from this week...
- Perry's British Infantry - Get ready for some fighting in the Sudan or a Steampunk world.
- Empress Modern Combat - Mount up in recce vehicles and man some grenade launchers.
- Labyrinth's Sarah - Take a wonderful look at River Horse's continued progress.
...what else have you noticed from this week?
Infinity In 2016
Carlos sits down to talk about the future of Infinity in 2016 with both the ITS tournaments coming up and plenty of releases on the horizon.
Organised Play
Talking about the ITS leads us into thinking about organised play and how that effects the way we gamers play our games.
Do you think that organised play is the way forward for those companies who are just starting out? What kind of support should companies offer?
Kickstarters
It's time to check out who is fund raising...
- Widower's Wood - We take a look at this new adventure game from Privateer Press
- Feldmaster Carry Cases - Will this become the new way to transport miniatures?
Grab a Backstage Free Trial and join us for The Weekender XLBS tomorrow!
Also keep in mind we have some winners to announce to stick around to see if you won and Claim Your Prize Here.
Have a great weekend!
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Happy Weekend!
Morning
Morning! The first word that sprang to mind about your ‘super crystal’ being discovered by aliens, was: ‘EXTERMINATE!’, ”EXTERMINATE!
Happy weekend
ITS is why I have fallen out of love with Infinity , its a system that has evolved to take away the fun of wargaming , I want to have a laugh , and its just not enjoyable.
Nobody is forcing you to play ITS missions or take part in any tournaments, the game can be played the way you want.
ITS is popular as the players want a tournament format that works. If you want fun fluffy missions then use some of the ones from Campaign Parideso or the Dire Foes Missions.
Better yet write one yourself, base it of a setpeice from a film, novel, video game or comic you like. The system has the components there to make the game you want to play.
Really? I love ITS.
But I’m lucky to have a really good, friendly local community of players. I attended the Totally Crit Open V Tournament recently in Tunbridge Wells, and it was a really fun, friendly and welcoming atmosphere.
As with any organised tournament, the fun element depends on the people, I think. More than the game.
I’m with you on this one, in my opinion ITS sucked all the fun from Infinity
@deepgreenx I wish people around here shared your pov but as it is ever since people from my old crew stopped playing I can’t play real friendly game that is not ITS legal; the bottom line is I gave up on Infinity as a game and moved to other games
Gordon E Moore.
That’s the one lol
E’gads – ’tis the weekend upon us once more. What fare is laid before us this morn?
Something cool for AdeptiCon, you say?
I’ve never really played in stores, prefering to play with guys that I know. But we’ve been playing a lot of organized play just amongst ourselves.
For Warhammer FB we’ve been running escalation campaigns with 500pts escalation rounds. Simply campaign rules, simple point system for keeping scores, simple unit evolution. We made a Facebook page for tracking it all.
My club (rpg, boardgames, larp etc) Rottehullet has had a bloodbowl league for years. Running on the 11th season I think. From season 3 onwards we paid 50£ a year (for the entire club) for a website. ratt.bloodbowlleague.com Real cheap for having everything in one place.
Some players are more competetive than others. But all seasons are finished with a game day, where everybody plays together for a couple of games, there’s prizes and everybody watches the final game together. A ticket is 5£ for the day, covers beers, soda and toast for everyone.
Campaigns and organised play is a fantastic way to get more story into your gaming and it’s a way to make you “have to” play those games.
FFG have made OP a big part of their card and minis games. Not only does it help grow each individual game, it creates an overall FFG brand and people will buy into the OP and play multiple FFG games. Not just prize support, but unique prize support you can only get by attending an event is a big motivator for attending organised events. We get custom prize support made for the Relic Knights events (such as this – https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153331648134022&set=g.406678006060729&type=1&theater). Harking back to FFG, they give out multiple different unique items and most attendees, if not all, will walk away with something.
Also, don’t be intimidated by ‘competitive’. It isn’t a dirty word. I know that for many people it conjures up images of poor gaming experiences but that’s rarely the case. I was at an AGoT tournament just last night. Whilst myself and all three of my opponents were trying win, the games were all played in a great spirit and with great sportsmanship. There is a minority for whom competitive excludes enjoyment of just playing the game itself, but the majority play tournaments because they enjoy the game and enjoy the social aspect.
Here’s some examples of FFG prize support kits. The cards are full bleed alt art versions of existing cards and most people will leave with at least one of them –
You’re bang on about KS, @warzan . It’s my dream that one day we’ll see an end to the pontificating about ‘what KS is supposed to be for’.
I’d like to start by saying that I love the show but today the table looks kinda messy with a giant laptop sitting in the middle of it. How about keeping Bren as a smaller window and keeping things simpler & looking tidier. No offence to the guy but I don’t believe a giant Bren face is essential to the show. The small window & disembodied voice was fine for what it did.
#Presentation Values
We’ll see if we can tidy things up a bit 🙂
We only got it technically working 10mins before recording so we have some stuff we can still do 🙂
Awesome stuff, can’t wait! I really like Infinity, I just wish I could find more people in my area to play. I use Infinity level terrain in most of my games now especially 40k, I find it really adds a whole new depth that can be sometimes lacking when the table is kinda empty.
Interesting show, sorry i tend to skip through the kickstarters, but I believe there was something on a magnetised box or figures to keep them safe. You can actually purchase magnetic paper that need no fixing as in drilling etc to fix the magnet to. Been used for ages with the old metal concertina work boxes really does work and this will work right up to massive armies in any scale. You don’t really need a box bought special at a price that you could quite easily magnetise every single model you have owned up until now.
ChrisG
Pretty sure nobody is going to run an ITS tournament that isn’t based on competition 😉
That said, I think building organised play systems that promote fun (and experimentation with wacky army lists) are really valuable.
I’m not saying that ITS isn’t fun, however. I love ITS. It’s fast, intense and addictive, and in my experience the scene is really warm and inclusive and friendly. Which helps when you’re being shot in the back every 5 minutes.
Good morning guys, another weekender to drink my coffee too
I like the show, but I think that there are a number of things that make magic the gathering successful and I could lay them out, the problem is that a lot of them have to do with the consumer base and it isn’t replicate-able by war-gaming industry because of how they work.
To give one solid example people at worst among the magic playing community look at Wizards of the Coast as a well intentioned moron when they do something bad or just incompetent, but not evil. When this is contrasted with Games-Workshop they are seen as evil, but competent at best. How the consumer base views the company is integral to the success of the business, however the problem becomes that you don’t want an absolutely positive view of the company, this is why Warmachine/Hordes has sporadic spurts of success, they encounter enthusiast and they talk about how wonderful the company is and how they never do any of the mistake that GW does, when they encounter these mistakes they are brushed off and consumers believe that they are lied to.
The other problem is perceived entry price. While the cheapest tournament competitive is 180 dollars, with the more competitive decks costing 400. However the perceived price of entry is 5.5 or whatever the booster price is for a single packet of magic cards in your region. See while no one actually believes that you can make a viable deck out of a booster pack that must be compared to the base price of unit in wargaming which is far more significant, even when looking at the starter decks they price between 20 and 50 dollars, this the average price of your starting units in wargaming…
Anyway I could go on, but due to my research I believe that wargaming cannot achieve the success that magic the gathering or many other card games have for a number of reasons. I would like if these hobbies were a little more popular, but it is very very difficult.
There are barriers to entry that wargaming has and card gaming doesn’t. Magic was specifically designed to be an easily portable and playable game, which is the key to its massive success. Wargaming is neither of things and you have to make a real effort to reach the point where you’re actually playing the game. Card gaming is also much better suited to store gaming than wargaming is, so stores set themselves up to exploit that. All of that said, it isn’t so much that wargaming is being compared to Magic, as it is that other card games are being compared to Magic. What is it about Magic that makes it the hobby industry leader and leaves all bar a Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh (which both have a significant non-hobby presence) trailing in its dust. In part it’s to do with the playing. The more people play Magic, the more people play Magic, and Friday Night Magic is a key part of that. Every knows that no matter where they are, they’re never too far from people playing Magic on a Friday evening. That further encourages stores to get in on it as it improves their revenues. The whole thing self-perpetuates. As both you and @warzan have said, that is not the sum total of Magic’s success by any means. It got there first, it has a generic easy to understand setting which is not subject to the waxing and waning of an IP, it’s a simple game which is also easy to understand but offers a lot of depth, it keeps its environment fresh, it hits the collector’s gene just right, and so on, but the OP aspect is an important pillar of that.
The one thing that wargaming can learn is that to be successful you should keep your barriers to entry low. It’s something X-Wing has amply demonstrated. 40K has the Magic advantage of getting there first (as did WFB, though 40K ate WFB). Other games who don’t want to go down the X-Wing route and obviously can’t challenge GW on seniority, need to exploit OP to be successful. It is precisely what PP did with Warmachine. That game was built on OP and is geared to succeed in that environment. The result is a very ‘game-y’ game which won’t be to everyone’s tastes, but there’s no denying PP have made a success out of it.
Witness also Guild Ball, which was a small indie game that hit retail last April, and has sold out in advance a 128 player tournament this May, and which sold out its slots at AdeptiCon necessitating an expansion of its OP presence there, something no other game outside the big companies has come close to doing. GB was also intentionally created to work well in an OP setting and its reaping the rewards of that.
Oh, Guild Ball is a delight. Such good miniatures too.
…although a lot of people got into that through Malifaux, a very successful game with a vibrant scene.
And Warmachine too. It’s a very smartly conceived and marketed game, though part of that is borrowing the tournament elements that helped Malifaux and Warmachine become successful.
Absolutely love the Kickstarter section in each show. Looking forward to more Mantic stuff in upcoming shows. It would be nice to see some laser cut mdf terrain from some of the other companies.
I love gaming that my wife has learned to hate it if you know what I mean. Playing games is such a hard thing for me to do ever since I got married. It’s not marriage that’s a drag on the gaming scene but rather life just moves on and new priorities come first.
What you were talking about getting people involved and actively playing your game often is a challenge. For me I find hard to get into a new game not because of the rules, model count, painting or space. The number one thing that tends to hold me back is how much effort am I the client of this game am going to have to invest in convincing others to give this game a try? As in am I doing the marketing for the game rather than the company doing the marketing.
I have a number of games that I can count on my hands that look great but seem to have little to no support from the company. I find it hard to play a game when the company is not involved with the community, doesn’t have support and has nobody campaigning for it to be played.
God I wish the things you mentioned about tournament support, incentives and prestige was taken more serious across the board as it really does draw people into playing.
Morat refugee? The mere thought of such traitorous scum makes me sick to my core. Must…kill…them…all.
Happy Weekend guys and gals 🙂
I really like the discussion about KS 😉
Thanks very much, Warren, Justin, and Ben for the great segment on Force-on-Force.
Indeed, I used to play a lot of Full Spectrum Warrior back in the day. I described it to my friends as a “shooting wargame on the console, without a “shoot” button and without a “move” button. 😀 It was all fireteam commands.
Like Ben says about measuring the QUALITY OF THE TROOPS vs. the characteristics of the weapons:
Compared to Word War 2, weapons design since then has in many cases reached something like an “evolutionary apex.” Tanks are much more similar nowadays than they were before, assault rifles, grenade launchers, all have become very similar. In contrast, in WW2 we see large armies of roughly-similarly trained soldiers with big variances in equipment.
In many modern conflicts, this dynamic is reversed. Barely-trained insurgents, rebels, terrorists, are up against some of the most highly-trained fighting men and women the world has ever seen, Navy SEALS, SAS, British and Australian Commandos, German KSK units, Israeli special forces, etc. But is an AK, M4, IW, L-85, or FNC really that different?
Like Warren says about ASYMMETRICAL WARFARE:
Scenario design is yet another way that asymmetrical warfare is addressed in Force-on-Force. The powerful, well-equipped government force might have to control the of a whole city block or district, take almost no casualties, and kill no civilians. The rebel / insurgent / terrorist force might be allowed to sustain 10-1 losses, kill as many civilians as they want, blow up buildings or roads with IEDs (improvised explosive devices), or strike first with an ambush (which government troops wouldn’t be able or allowed to do).
Irregulars / Insurgents also handle morale differently, sustain and care for casualties differently, and have different rules for command and control.
So it’s not just numbers and equipment that make asymmetrical warfare. It’s also objectives, acceptable losses, available tactics, and a range of other factors addressed in scenario design.
I’ve rambled enough. I’m off to check out that Wolsung game! 😀
HI Guy’s ,
i hear you talking about kikstarter almost everyweek so for the extra money you need to get the second studion and maybe more upgrade for the studio i think you might do a kikstarter youre self ! and why not giving XLBS pass for the help of the new people and if it’s a already Xlbs guy from here …. well i don’t know what you can give as pledge but i am sure you can think of something 😉
Happy Weekend
Morning
The ITS games over here are fairly casual. Sure, people build their armies to win, but you won’t get smacked around the ears with a rulebook for forgetting how a certain rule works. Especially a game like Infinity is so varied it’s nearly impossible to know every mechanic for every profile. Each new game is a learning experience.
With regards to using facebook for organised play:
By all means use it as an promotional tool, but I would think long and hard before /requiring/ participants to sign up to a disreputable 3rd party before letting them be part of your organised play. “You are not willing to sign up to Dodgy Company” should not be a reason to exclude gamers from participating!
Privateer Press have a new league document out. As with most of their organized play, they give out stylized pins as prizes and players like to collect those. The new league is interesting because it doesn’t focus on Warcasters/Warlocks and their Battlegroups, but rather focuses on a platoon of troops.
What’s interesting @warzan is that as you gain points in the league, your platoon gains new abilities. The Company of Iron: http://privateerpress.com/files/CompanyofIron_Rules_Core_PF.pdf
Really interesting segment on Organised Play. There’s no question that organising people to play games gets them to play more games. It was very interesting to hear GW’s take on running tournaments. I’ve never been to one and assumed that they weren’t very well organised, being just about playing games, but I like the sound of their structured ‘victory is irrelevant’ system.
My only recent experience of organised play comes from Hawk Wargames and Dropzone Commander. I think Hawk strike a very good balance. The game is well balanced and so suitable for competitive play, but the tournaments aren’t just about the competition. I’ve now taken part in two: the recent Invasion, run by Hawk, and a Coastal Assault, run by one of their Talons (Press-Ganger equivalents). In both examples we had some of the best players in the world (including the Orbital Bombardment guys) and some of the worst (yours truly).
It’s amazing how well both tournaments accomodated both sets of players. The good players have some fun, but really close games at the top of the table, and the rubbish ones / first time players such as myself, learn as we go and have fun messing around at the bottom. And the game works well enough that when you meet in the middle, the worse player very likely loses, but has a good time doing so. The game design doesn’t allow even a very good player to destroy their opponent in one turn, so even if you can see yourself being defeated, it’s still an interesting and fun experience. And of course all of the people I’ve played against have been super nice.
But going back to Hawk and support, I don’t think it’s the prospect of winning a prize that’s important. The OB team must have won a million Blotz 10mm buildings by now, and can’t possibly want or need any more. But prize support shows that the company is interested in the gaming community. And _that_ matters hugely. Having the guys from the company on site, talking about their game, making you feel like you matter to them, really matters.
Hawk make attendance at their tournament weekends free to people who aren’t actually competing, so you can join in the fun, look around, see the pre-release models and artwork, chat with the designers, and even get some practice games in, if you want. And you can see how friendly and welcoming the tournament itself is.
Final thoughts:
Hawk have had repeated requests (including from me) for them to run some narrative campaign weekends, where there will be less emphasis on competition and more on completing story arks. I can’t wait for these!
Anyone who shows up with a painted army gets entered into a prize draw. So although the best painted army wins a prize, everyone who bothers to paint their force has an equal chance at winning something.
Hawk have also been very good at being happy to let the community organise and lead things. Rather than try to stay in control of everything relating to their game, they give interviews to community bloggers, support events run by community members, and so on. It all helps to build a community that values being part of a gaming community, spreads the workload, and creates the feeling that there is a vibrant community to join if the game interests you.
By and large this is my experience of tournaments. Swiss is pretty much industry standard so people can find their level, the atmosphere tends to be social and communal, and most companies will help out however they can. Even getting tabled by an opponent who really knows what they’re doing is a great learning experience. I’ve been on both ends of that. I attended the first official Guild Ball tournament at Expo last year with just one game under my belt, lost every game, some by wide margins, learned loads and became a much better player, enjoyed all the games, won a starter for finishing last, met the Steamforged guys and got some sneak peaks of upcoming minis. Conversely I’ve won all the Relic Knights tournaments I’ve entered this last year, but whilst I play to win I’m not playing to win-at-all-costs, I enjoy chatting about the games afterwards and where it’s welcome, giving advice on lists and tactics. The Ninja Division guys have shipped over prize support and given us permission to use artwork from the game to make our own prize support.
over here in Bristol Turnaments are just great fun, you have all levels of players, all try to help each other and I never had any bad experience. fun first then win kind of event.
Great show,
Using facebook works to get connected and advertise advents. One Company that has a pretty good system Wargamer with By Fire and Sword. They use it to keep you up to date with products as well. They also have a reward system in place, the Ducat system.
@warzan Hands down, thee best cylon impression I’ve ever seen! You even did the upward flash on their eye light. A-Mazing! 😀
Release at least your frontstage stuff as torrent files for us to share and store. That should help guarantee data availability for the foreseeable future.
Happy Weekend!
nice one guys.
When are Lloyd and John coming back to the show?! I miss ’em!
I always enjoy warzan’s philosophising on wargaming, but I found his comment on how different video-gaming and miniatures games are — with regard effort — particularly insightful.
So often they are seen as competitors, but for many of us they are completely different mindsets. When I am absolutely shattered (sickness, tiredness, or hangover) video-games seem ideal. When I have interest & energy I play with minis.
Great show guys! Nice to see a bigger Ben up there, but like another member said, maybe move about the laptop out of the table, otherwise it will get messy when you have to show Something!
Cya tomorow
Another shout out here for ITS. My experience has always been positive and even though it’s a “tournament” it feels more like a big get together where you get to play new people and see new armies. I also like that they have the Hobby scoring variant and things like joint operations.
The same thing goes for Steamroller. I’ve found that when the game and the tournament system is robust enough that you don’t need to argue about it, the actual game experience and interaction with the other player becomes more enjoyabe and friendly.
Very much looking forward to playing more Infinity this year. We’ve built up a strong group and the game seems to be thriving.
as always great
Great show and love the new camera options. Soo much better now that I can see the whole picture instead of it always being split. Nice to see BOW are always looking to improve a great product keep it up guys!!!
I’m going to Adepticon where I’ll be playing in the Saga Doubles and the Bolt Action Nationals.
I play a lot of wargames and attend a lot of tournaments including Infinity ITS ones.
At ITS and big Flames of War tournaments I have seen a few players who are really, really focused on getting 1st place which can mean a less than jovial game as they are so focused.
Personally I go to tournaments to get a lot of games in versus people and armies i would not normally see, have fun, learn something new and try not to come last.