Can miniatures ruin a game ? More can a photo of @dignity ruin your eye sight – What been seen can not be unseen 😉

Well done BoW, I enjoyed that! For the record I a) pretty much only buy stuff with minis I want to paint and b) knew that Justin would defend his minis to the bitter end! 😉

Gooooood morning, OTT / Beasts of War.

Okay, as the designer of World War 2.5 I’d like to chime in.

@brennon is correct right out of the game. The importance of minis relies largely on the level of the wargame being played. So if we look at …

Level 1: “Pure Tactical” (WYSIWYG, skirmish, etc., one man/figure = one troop / vehicle) – yes, miniatures can really add a lot. I’ve honestly played skirmish modern wargaming in counter form, and as much as I love the counter side of the camp, it’s not the same. Level one is anything up to and including, say … Flames of War.

Level 2 – “Command Tactical” – still a tactical wargame on a single battlefield but bow each piece = more than one man … Miniatures are not that important. In fact, they can be harmful to immersion because they are not to scale with the terrain. Also, they represent 10, 100, or 1000 men, and so they are effectively “lying” to you. Examples would be Panzer Leader we’ve been playing via webinar lately or the Waterloo battle game Justin and Warren played with Alessio. Some people DO play Level 2 with miniatures very successfully. The best example I can think of off the top of my head is GMT Microarmor – 6mm moderns and WW2 – they’ve been doing it since the 1960s and still one of the best tactical wargames out there.

Level 3 – Operational – minis are completely NOT required. They’re not necessarily harmful … IF the wargame is simple enough (World War 2.5 I’m not ashamed to say is a VERY simple operational level wargame), but any miniatures won’t have nearly as much information on them as the counters do. There are pitfalls to what’s Justin’s talking about, where you may have problems putting more than one unit in a hex if they are miniatures, you have to make “counter bases” for the miniatures anyway to contain all the information required on the unit (there are usually MAAAAAAAANY more types than we see in World War 2.5), with a LOT more detailed information. Could you play with minis as playing pieces? Theoretically yes, if you made the map large enough and didn’t mind flipping through reams of paperwork to tie your “numberless” minis to the rather large amount of data that most operational wargames require.

Level 4 – Strategic. Ehh … again, the rules and specific data points per piece, variety of pieces, and hundreds or thousands of pieces (not kidding or exaggerating) on a given map are usually just too complicated for miniature play, unless you figure out a way to put numbers / data on the miniature. The only possible example I can think where this works in a Level 4 strategic game is Axis & Allies, which honestly is barely a wargame.

RISK is not a wargame. 🙁 It’s a board game. If it was a wargame, it would be Level 4 Strategic. I suppose you could “house rule” it up to a bonafide wargame, and I honestly can’t speak to the expansions and variants that have come out. Some of them might push the system up into the wargame level.

Point #2 (yes, there’s going to be a lot of these) … 😀

@dignity mentions that the playing pieces in World War 2.5 weren’t very recognizable to him.

Fair point. They’re extremely recognizable to people who have “grown” up playing this kind of wargame, those symbols are certainly not my invention, they are the actual NATO standard symbology used by real-life military planners to this day.

But I totally get that if you’re not used to them, you might have a tough time reading them.

MANY hex & counter wargames “get around” this by having the counter, with all the advantages that a counter presents (numbers, classifications, game values, etc … ON the counter, and usually there are dozens or even 100+ TYPES on a given table) …

BUT … rather than the symbology, they have an actual picture that aids in the very quick and easy recognition you guys were talking about. 😀

Personally I will say that being used to reading the symbols on the counters of World War 2.5 make it faster to recognize the units.
But the hobbiest in me love the minis

i was actually scared to click on the thumbnail…. this is a whole other level of wrong!!!
but im still here as i enjoy the XLBS to much, so i closed my eyes and clicked on in…

Came for the hobby, stayed for the newtonian physics. *insert twilight zone music*

Hmm…. an alcohol infused live stream…. I want that… what could possibly go wrong? Attendees must be 18+ of course… Make it happen @avernos !!!

Minis in games:
* In a game like Mice & Mystik they are eye candy. Could do without but since there are so few minis it doesn’t drive the cost up the wall so it’s ok.
* In a game like Doom or Imperial Assault they are essential. Not only for the look but the feel. That big ass demon doesn’t scare you if it’s a flat token.
* In most other games you could do without. Especially when the miniature count goes past 100 and eats a lot of the money. Those aren’t board games anymore. Those are miniature games.

Can miniatures ruin a game? no they cannot, can bad designers or bad design decisions ruin a game regardless of miniatures? sure all the time.

Lets start with a few basic principles any miniature in a game is a glorified token, by their nature they can add a 3rd dimension to the game without creating complex rules to make it work, but that is just it, a token can convey more information in a more contained space.

So why do we have miniatures in our game why do we even include them, simply put they sell games, why do people play X-com with full graphics when a simple graphic interface with maybe some artwork would work? why consumers complain about standees not been miniatures, especially in hybrid games like Gloomheaven? why KDM no minis edition (an experiment run by Poots by chance really) sold so poorly when the only thing missing was the minis? Why all battle colours series except ancients have miniatures and not cubes with sticker artwork on them?

Simply people like the miniatures, they convey an easily identifiable figure to look at, have more character and are more acceptable than a boring chit with stats on it.

Since @warzan mentioned them why do we even have meeples? they are expensive, harder to produce than cubes or cylinders and take more space to store, simple, because they are more aesthetically pleasing than a simple cube and consumers prefer that.

Chits, standees, cubes, meeples are done mostly as a cost cutting measure for space and weight and shared components, expect specific cases were the components are used in gameplay like flicking games or the famous cube tower a game upgrading basic components to miniatures can sell more, if it does not price itself outside of its logical price range.

Now I have to resurrect the memory of many that “chit” style “miniature like” wargames have been tried in the past and they failed, even though on paper they would be great, already “painted” (printed in card) all stats on card, no real gameplay change from a miniatures game (ancient/ medieval/ fantasy mass combat), and one can carry several armies on a small organiser, people simply preferred miniatures over flat cards, despite all the “perceived” inherited flaws.

I also have to point out that in recent Kickstarters and a few non Kickstarter endeavours the “deluxe” edition that includes miniatures is vastly preferred over simple non miniature editions despite the price difference.

Now lets see from a design perspective how they miniaures actually change design decisions and games, space mostly, miniatures take a physical space and this tends to make games require more space to play, given the recent excellent gameplay videos of @oriskany games, the WW2.5 game if it included miniatures instead of tokens would probably require hexes twice the size plus datacards on the side and the Darkspace could maybe have much smaller hexes if it had just chits, but the visual of the game would be vastly diminished and would not look as interesting as it is.

Now there are several cases were bad design decisions ruin games, but this is not really because of miniatures
CMOn Zombicide branch for example does indeed change gameplay witht he amount of zombies one has purchased, this makes the game more difficult with playing with just the game box and more easy for Kickstarter buyers/ anybody who bought more zombies, that is partially because of a mentality make them buy/ shove in more miniatures, but really is bad game design, one could fix it with limiting the amount of zombies allowed in each scenario to a specific number, GWs infamous WHFB miniature removal is more or less addressed in Mantic’s KoW system, LoF is an interesting issue, but true LoF is easier to implement than a plethora of abstract LoF systems that have been used in the past.

It is not the miniatures that ruins games and games will not be better without them, its designers who fail to understand the pieces they have to work with that make games bad, the general trend shows that in most cases, as far as the miniatures and other 3D objects do not price the product out of its market, they vastly improve any game they are included in.

Belated thanks for a another great topic. Have touched on this very this subject with the guys I game with regularly and though I’m at risk of sounding hypocritical given what populates my shelves it does now seem that scaled minis have become too much of a focus lately. Abstraction within games is unavoidable and the scaled mini craze has diminished the variety of creative abstraction as it relates to boardgames. I think the call to make things more tactile often comes at the expense of other levels of communication and ideas. Some of us older gamers would be familiar with thimmbal vs race car arguments but at what point does it really make a difference.

Can miniatures ruin a game? Yes, absolutely and I can’t think of any game where the miniatures could not be removed completely and replaced by counters or such. It wouldn’t be as visually appealing but the game would still function as designed.

To some extent, I think the views depend upon whether you come from a boardgame or war game background. I could see more war gamers wanting/needing miniatures where as board gamers are more likely to feel that miniatures ruin the game. Certainly with the inclusion of miniatures, a rules designer needs to include consideration for the actual miniatures, the bases and the interactions with each other. Depending upon how these rules are put together, it could certainly ruin a game.

I also see a lot of games, particularly on Kickstarter, where it looks as if the creators have a lot of good sculpts looking for a game. As a consequence, the rules sometimes (not always) play second fiddle to the miniatures. While a great looking model is always something to be admired, I do believe that having a solid rule set first underpins the success of the game.

Finally, I can understand how miniatures add flavour and immersion to a game and the back story. This can certainly enhance the gaming experience and make the game more enjoyable as a whole. Kings of War doesn’t need the miniatures but looks so much better for having them. But then the rules were written with the handling of miniatures in mind and provide a solid foundation for the game as a whole.

So miniatures can ruin a game, but only if the designer doesn’t plan in how the miniatures will work as physical game pieces properly.

So I think miniatures make a game like Reich Busters or Sword and Sorcery better. I do think they can make a game worse especially if you are going to add expansions and try to shoehorn new things in that were never thought of in initial design. In general I believe that is a bad design decision, but that also can be seen as miniatures limiting the design.

What I want to look at is three Fantasy Flight games that have different levels of miniatures. Arkham Horror, Fallout the board game, and Mansions of Madness. So we go from a token game, to miniatures for players, to miniatures for everything. I feel the miniatures in Mansions of Madness are completely unnecessary, and for the most part I have taken the tokens out of their bases and leave the miniatures at home. I also feel the necessity of miniatures have limited options that could be added to the games if they didn’t have to produce it in plastic. I do not feel gameplay is impacted by the existence of miniatures, but it does make it a pain in the butt to transport and play. Arkham Horror (pick the edition) on the other hand is the opposite where everything is a token. I think this game would gain when it comes to miniatures for the players. I think Fallout has found a good medium, I can see who I am and get an idea of what I do by my representation, but everything else is represented by a token.

So I think a game can be both enhanced or detracted by miniatures. I think once you get to skirmish level, when you go from a “board” to a “table”, I find miniatures almost a necessity. Including things like Kings of War, where you only interact with the miniatures as a unit. Until you expand unit size and scope that the “table” becomes a “board” again. It really becomes a space issue, the miniature becomes an abstraction anyway, so counters can convey more information again.

Such a complex subject that has great value, but difficult to comment on without offering an essay. But let me offer that in some cases it does matter. Two compatible games, Avalon Hill’s Third Reich and their Axis and Allies. The former use cardboard pieces which carry values (strength) in combat. The latter are purely symbols of utility (land, air, sea, etc.). In my view both games are great and only work successfully due to the mechanic imposed by the playing pieces. On the opposite spectrum, where would Bolt Action, Black Powder, Blood and Plunder, etc. be in popularity if no miniatures? This topic is going to keep me up at night while I argue with myself.

Final note, Zombicide’s miniatures has allowed the makers significant market for expansions, so from a marketing point of view their decision could be seen as a success. At least in my neighborhood its a very popular game and the expansions appear to sell well.

Really great show, thanks.

thumbnail had me thinking of kenny Everett, as for do miniatures ruin a game? well the easy answer is no.

forgive me if i missed it (im currently battling nurgle) but i didnt hear the view discussed from the persons input to the game and the following.

The hands on hobby part of the game painting the miniatures to add your own personal investment into the game as a whole. The developers make and distribute the game but for most gamers they want to see past the grey plastic and invest their time and effort to paint and add their own unique contribution to the game experience. A theme if you will of how they see the game universe in their minds eye. likewise this spills over and fuels the generation of scenarios and terrain. Usually its only this aspect of the game a person can invest in without homebrew rules and then we are talking its a different game.

There are also gamers who are so enamoured with the game and its minis, who are inspired to create those dioramas we wonder and drool over in white dwarf and other publications. The game minis simply spark an avenue of creativity which runs alongside the actual games playing. a bridge if you will to the hands on hobby.

we are also lucky to be living in an age when technological improvements to the hobby process and the sheer number of remarkably talented sculptors, regularly produce awesome sculpts for games. Its not like in the old days when the pieces were uninspiring. i myself only get inspired to do something more than open and play the game when i see good minis,

Guys, your topics spiraling down from week to week.
Next week: Are we needing glasses to drink water? Or is it allowed to be drinked from the bottle? Maybe we should return drinking from the river, nah! Fishes pissing in there. Next mindmelter, every molecule of water we drink was possible part of a dinosaurs metabolism, think the next step 😉

Oh. My. God.

Finally got round to watching – interesting topic. I think in a way Justin hit the issue at its key area, some people need the models. I attempt to be a historical gamer in a predominantly sci-fant club, and whilst I have a large lead pile, I rarely get off my arse to have painted armies to push around a flat surface. I hit on the idea that the scale of game I was gravitating towards (corp plus) and where fig removal, firstly the miniature issue around scale and range diminished from a logic point (for example, get say 400 inf mins and line them up in two ranks as a quasi nap Brit battalion, and do a similar thing but in ranks of 6 for a french unit and then seeing that reread som battalion/divisional rules in particular the unit footprints) but getting back to topic I could get a pack of multi coloured index cards and make standins. Game wise this worked for Polmos, To the Stongest and arguably is encouraged with Blucher by Sam mustafa (although I believe he would prefer you buy the unit cards made by his partners!) however trying to take a willing victim from say 40k into this and gain traction is difficult as there are no minis is difficult and I am lucky for the one I have but is not a done deal.
Ultimately it depends on who you’re playing with and finding a gaming partner who shares you ethos is the key to how much it matters. I don’t care if there are minis if the game can be played without (but I still wants the preciouses) but others like Justin (apologies @dignity if I am doing you a dis-service by the way) will care and the gaming experience will be lessened by the absence of figs. Rant over good night

BoW awards – I do not like the move to BoW choose the awards, I understand it streamlines and makes it easier and I know that you are impartial, but it becomes a very much potential for things to be missed by the BoW team and in the end if someone pays into you enough they get themselves nominated. The big thing about music awards and film awards are some say that they are the best because it is the public that nominate them, for me by removing the public input, you make the awards meaningless. I would like you to have a very defined category still open for public, so even if you close the public input to all awards, please have a peoples choice award – limit it to backstagers, and let us still vote for an overall game, you can then keep your own awards about who you want to include but remain a more independent award called backstagers choice or something.

Any game can be over complicated by components, components can make or break a game, whether that is miniatures or tokens. Some games the over engineered components disguise gameplay, others the gameplay is ace but the components make it unplayable as it isn’t visually appealing. There is a hug balance to resources spent on components, and sometimes and elaborate components will make me scrutinise the gameplay more in case they are hiding behind it.
Warchest for example could have gone for miniatures, so you pull the poker chip but have a model on the board, but they didn’t and stuck with using the abstraction of the poker chip and it works superbly.
KDM for me would lose so much without the miniatures, KDM goes for immersion and it needs that, yes the game would still play fine with tokens but takes away from the story and the world, which is really important for KDM – plus as a business model KDM have nailed it with miniatures and can exploit it as extra revenue, which is fine for a company to do.

As another thought on miniatures – I think the game needs a very strong idea of what it is, to then include miniatures.
I have Mythic Battles, and I could easily play that game with no miniatures, just chits with the unit logo on them would work fine, easier in some ways when you try and squeeze all the models into a space, however, would the game be an enjoyable? I think not, there is something about immersion that a sculpted model gives you, But that being said I think Mythic B had a very strong game and I get the impression that the miniatures were an elaborate way of making the game more appealing for boardgamers and wargamers and to be able to retail at a higher price – but those guys are sold on using miniatures as it took a lot of investment from them. This is a game where I think you can class it under a well sculpted meeple. The game uses miniatures to represent a token, the game can be played with no miniature, but the experience is enhanced by them.

Where games suffer, like you said is wanting sculpted meeples, but than because you have a physical 3D element, they try and use that and become a hybrid game which loses a lot of potential gameplay joyness just to have fancier components.

Interesting about KDM too, maybe they could have had a card battle system with deck building and still have immersion and amazing art work, however could they have captured that in a self contained game?

The new harry potter game is an example for me, the gameplay is a bit weak, with some odd rules, it fails to really capture for me, how magic has been represented in the films (so an issue for me), but the miniatures are amazing, they do add to the immersion into the potterverse, but I think the game would be much better played on an open world rather than grid based. As soon as you have Line of site being driven from the square or hex the mini is on, but a mini there, you really want to measure base to base, so for me it was the miniatures that sold the game to me, but they are certainly the highlight and masks a weak game – but it is a game I will play and tweak because of the miniatures and that they do capture a slight part of potteverse that draws me back in.