Happy Sunday from Australia

Happy Sunday from Maine!

Happy Sunday all,

Happy Sunday… Despite that vision of Justin taking a dump confronting me first thing!

Happy Sunday everyone

Some lovely work this week for the painting section, congratulations to all those who won a Golden Button.

For the subject that’s the meat of the show I would have to go with repeat sculpt and poses in skirmish games and board games without rank and file. Exact repetition for me takes away from the submersion into the game even with a different paint job.

Justin .. WWX eating your hobby is nothing to be ashamed of man , you are living the dream. I hope this means that there are more wwx videos in the offing soon. Thanks for your hobby sacrifice

Happy Sunday everyone

Happy Sunday! Agree with Bens point on negativity and sams point on over granularity in games. Those grind my gears too!

Grinds….KS cowboys Like Robotech and Evil Dead 2

Very interesting discussion and good to shine a light on some of the darker areas of the hobby so that positives can be taken.

The thing that grinds my gears most often is that whenever a game company releases anything, up pop the same brigade of people who seem to think that every game company is out to steal the clothes off their back and take food off their tables.

These companies, large or small, are businesses. In my view they have the right to sell whatever they want at whatever price they want. If the price is exorbitant, it won’t sell, that’s economics. Unfortunately a secondary gear grind is that on Kickstarter these same complainers pop up with the single intent of driving the prices down or pushing for more free stuff, and it often works. For me this omnipresent minority puts pressure on a company to be see to be responding to the feedback by giving in to the demands. And this only moves that pressure onto the financial margins and adds risk to the project, which is ultimately bad for everyone.

I see way more examples of game companies going out of their way to be fair to their customers (Warcradle with WWX, even FFG with X-Wing 2.0) than I do companies looking to milk their customers unfairly.

Gears ground!

Theres only one main thing in the hobby that really annoys me, which is when somebody in a game, complains about things going badly all the time…for no reason

For myself, i don’t care about winning, if i enjoy the game, i’m happy. My dice rolls are constantly terrible, so i usually lose, or i make terrible decisions, but 99 times out of 100, i’ll enjoy the game, regardless of how badly im losing, because for me, the game in made fun by the person im playing with, not the game itself.

In the club i used to go to however, there was one guy who, as soon as something went bad for him, he would complain. It could be the last turn, he could have been rolling amazing dice all game and it could be impossible for him to lose. Then he would roll one bad dice, and all of a sudden he would start complaining about how he always rolls badly, how his games never go well and he would just ruin the mood in the room and just be completely dis-interested in the rest of the turn.

The other scenario is that the game could literally have just started, he rolls badly and again, starts complaining about always rolling badly etc and again, be completely dis-interested in the rest of the game, and at that point, completely ruins the enjoyment of the game for those playing and those watching.

If something does go bad once or twice, then sure you might complain about that, or of you are actually having a bad game which there is no way for you to enjoy it, then sure. But when you have virutally no reason to complain, either the game has gone well and its been a brilliant game, or the tiniest thing has gone wrong, maybe out of your squad of 10, one model missed, then theres no need to complain about how things always go bad for you, especially not to the point where it ruins it for everyone involved.

Nothing really grinds my gears. There are things I don’t like such as scale snobbery. It wasn’t too long ago when 28mm gamers were derided when everyone knew 15mm was the only proper scale to game in. Times change except people not liking 2mm but I’m strong enough in my little darkened room to cope 🙂

I suppose following that is rule makers claiming games are 28mm,15mm etc. I’m just not sure I get this at all along with gamers not wishing to play games with figures that the company has also produced. Again this seems apart from a couple of exceptions to be a very recent development.

Probably not an annoyance but games seem to be getting shorter do people not set out to play games with their lunch packed and knowing that they will be happily playing for 5 or 6 hours. I get the feeling that people seem to get bored with something after an hour and a half. Thinking about it I guess it’s part of a wider social development and policies of various governments that seem to decrease people’s lesiue time due to economic pressures

Happy Sunday

Viking 878 is a superb game Ben should definitely get it, it’s lots of fun as are the other academy games games:-)

Also just to say, my Spitfire was the simplest of paint jobs, base coat colours, transfers added using Decalfix which effectively melts them on to the model. Then I used Army Painter Darktone dip brushed on. Followed by AP anti-shine and a few edge highlights and done the longest part was the waiting for the decals to set and the dip to cure 🙂

@Brennon opinions on model poses vary. I like static commanders, done well the pose conveys authority, or just “does-not-give-a-monkey’s-ness”. I also don’t like every last rank and file figure being in some kung fu movie super action pose.

I agree on feet on rocks (ammo boxes, logs, frogs, etc.) that needs to stop.

Oh and an anecdote to back up the games snobbery, I was talking to a small manufacturer of MDF kits at a show last year.

MDF kit man: looking for anything in particular?
Me: your Normandy stuff looks good.
MKM: 15mm?
Me: 28mm
MKM: oh, which game are you playing?
Me: Bolt Action
MKM: (20 minute diatribe of all that’s wrong with Bolt Action)

I’ll give you 20 guesses how many of his buildings I bought that day.

Happy Sunday to all, reference the grid my gear segment . Solo play, I have found a lot of game snobbery towards this. I have people say to me why would I bother playing solo and my answer is because snobs like you, i remember once emailing the dice tower to ask if they would review some solo games and the email I got back was five words…I DON’T PLAY SOLO GAMES… and that was it , so i answered back you are a board/ miniatures game review website so you only review games you play or your group play need to say I didn’t get an answer. Due to my work and family commitments solo play is the only way I can get any gaming in, the challenge of facing an opponent and the banter i miss but solo play can also have its reward i am not reliant on and fitting a game around a certain time of date, I play golf action solo and also use the platoon forward rules from TWO FAT LARDIES this makes for great play. Then there is the LORD OF THE RINGS off game excellent for solo play , I will finish on a great thank you to your site for covering solo play games in your weekenders when Ben talks about new games you have introduced me to some games that I did not know could be played solo.

Gripes.
Fan boys. I have tried to hobby and game as cheaply as possible. I am the only bread winner, so any money spent could have been saved for a rainy day or spent towards a family project instead. But some smaller company fan boys will tear you down for using alternative models to those produced by the company, claiming you are eating into their margins. If I buy the rulebook, play the game, spread the word that it is a good game, do they really think that everyone at my club will go through the hassle of buying and converting cheaper models? Or that I will never buy the companies models in the fulness of time if I enjoy the game?
Then you get veteran fan boys of bigger game systems that hate anyone making comments on their forum / Facebook page unless you know the lore or rulebook as chapter and verse as they do. Or perhaps just hate on you because you are bringing up a question which they have seen a dozen times that month. Telling someone new to shut up and read the codex, or shut up and look at last week’s feed for the answer is rude, off putting and dragging the game down. Because a game is big and there are plenty of players for it sadly people short-sightedly feel they don’t need to encourage new players to join. They have their pool of players and don’t care if they put off new comers by lording their superior knowledge of a game over them and belittling them.
Fan boys might be useful to generate enthusiasm and energy around a game, (“if they love the game so much, perhaps I might like it?”) but I almost stopped projects, or stopped playing games because of the sour taste left after being criticised for not knowing enough or not enjoying the game in the way that they have deemed to prescribe for everyone.

@brennon, I disagree about kickstarter helping create positive mindsets in the community.

I’d say it’s the complete opposite. communities are acting as if they own the brand, and creating such toxic responses to new releases that companies feel they need to rethink THEIR own product because the community is backlashing so hard.

This is certainly true on kickstarter itself but it has definitely crept into “normal” releases too.

It’s become a big issue in the video gaming industry, take a look at starwars battlefront 2, the communities toxicity has killed the game. The absurd allegations against their loot crates caused boycotting. It cut off the funding that would then pay for all the free dlc. So now the dlc is crap because there isn’t a point in supporting what would have been a fantastic game.

This will most certainly become more common in the tabletop sphere too as people become more and more self entitled.

!Happy Sunday, everyone!

It’s badly written rulebooks for me, Either they are difficult to understand lacking logical progression, the layout is badly designed or you are flicking between 4-5 pages to figure out what needs to be rolled. Whether it’s a board game, miniature games or RPG’s, if it’s acting as a barrier to someone playing the game or learning the game it cannot be a good thing.

My Peeves,

The people/social side:

The Old Grognards who will not allow a gaming system to evolve forward. They are so vocal and will defend bad mechanics just because this is how something has always been and they believe in more of the same despite many wanting change. Many in the Battletech community seem to fall into this category. Many Criticisms are shot down on the official forums which turns many off to the point now it is hard to find anyone to play with as there are so many other game systems available.

The False Experts. I see this on Reddit often. People who post recommendations to others and state things that are simply not true. Recently there was a post I responded to because a person was trashing Mythic Battles and Joan of Arc and obviously had not played either and this persons criticisms of the mechanics made no sense since this was not how the games are played. I see a lot of this especially on table top forums. I have played a lot of games and it just annoys me especially when someone is new and is looking for a suggestion and is not getting the facts.

The One and Done Crowd. These are gamers that try a game just one time and apparently are now experts and will tell anyone they can how a particular game sucks or is the greatest game ever made. For me, a single play, cannot possible give you the full depth of a game. Sure, there are games that you play once and you want to play again. There are other games that may take a few play throughs. Not everyone will clearly like a single game but after a single play through you do not know a enough and I find many miss a lot of rules which made the experience poor to begin with. I see this a lot about Decent 2nd Ed. and other games with large rule books.

The PC/Politics Crowd. I use games to escape for a few hours like many do with books or movies. It seems impossible to escape the same divisive issues even for 30min. At a visit to a gaming club a few weeks ago someone interrupted our game of Conan simply because of the past controversy of the Conan Game Rule Cover and the art of the game. We did not invite this person to come over. We did not want to have a discourse about the issue, we simply wanted to play the game. This person became so vocal and intense and threatened to rip up the game. The shop keeper finally asked the person to leave. The same heated discussion happens online as well. What makes me mad is that all types of expression of art should be allowed. If you don’t like it, don’t buy the game. There are so many games surely you can move on to another game. Instead, often on KS campaigns you see those who ruin the comments trying to get their PC ideas into the game. My favorite is still a game where someone argued that portraying witches as evil was unfair to those who practice Wicca and wanted the witches removed from the game. Not sure why people are backing the game except to express a political view and ruin the experience of others.

The rules police people. Enough said.

The people who do not come prepared to play or are more interested on checking Facebook every 5min then actually playing. We have a rule among my friends that all phones go into a box before we start playing.

On the gaming/mechanics side:

I am with Justin on the stat cards. If a game requires me to dig into a rule book for every stat it is an instant no purchase for me. I understand for smaller companies it may be expensive to create the cards but you can put them online and allow gamers to print them out. This is actually better since as the balance needs to change you only update online and everyone just prints out their own new cards.

My other annoyance is cards that are information dense and use small cards. As I have creeped into 50s range my eyesight is NOT what it used to be. If I cannot read the cards then I am not playing. On games I have really liked, thanks to the magic of a photo scanner and special software I have made my own cards that are bridge size so that I can more easily read them. While many have argued with me this is a copyright violation, I do not really care because otherwise I would simply not be able to play. Since I am not selling these and they are for my own personal use, I ignore the rules police.

I am too done with super long rounds. I can no longer tolerate games where a single players turn may take 20min to play. These game become too long and no longer fun.

Length of rules. On the tabletop wargaming side, I know there are those who love high fidelity games. I am not one of them. I do not need to know if someone slipped on the cobble stone while running across it. I do not need the wind to affect the aim of my arrow. I rather have streamlined play. I believe that the level of fidelity from the FFG Star Wars games is just the right length. If I need a book per army unit I am done. Same for board games. If the rules book is beyond 20 pages then the game is not for me because it is way to hard to teach to others. Since most of my friends will never do their homework before we play, it has to be explainable by me in 15min or less.

Too many icons and symbols. I do not mind custom dice or symbols on cards. It does get to be a bit much when you need to refer to a reference guide all the time. I see many struggle playing Race for the Galaxy or even 7 Wonders because of this.

I agree with all the stated criticism about miniatures on the show.

Regarding miniature wargaming. IMHO, there are far too many systems and they are all very expensive to get stuck into and it often dilutes the community. It gets hard to find a game for a specific system. I recently watched someone come to a game night all excited to play Infinity and no one showed up to play infinity because now everyone is stuck into Star Wars Legion. In 6 months it will be something else.

As I have become older and my kids will soon move on to university later this fall, I find I fall back to painting miniatures because I can get into my fortress of solitude for 1hr without worrying about any of the above.

I worry that while this hobby in general has grown, how much is it tailored to the existing community versus attracting a lot of new people.

Ouch Ben, the ‘Old Hands’ comment! Well I guess I am a lot older than you guys! 🙂
Guess I might as well own it, hence my call sign SilverFox. Was given that nickname by some of my friends spouses at the Army War College. Think it was more the grey hair than anything else!!!!
What grinds my gear during gaming.
Agree with Ben on the negativity comments, life is way to short to focus on the negative. Work on getting a positive outlook and life will be much better.
OK now on to my two issues.
People that answer cell phones and text during gaming – ABSOLUTE NO GO!!! Really rude and if you do that with me that typically is the last game I’ll play with you. Exceptions wife calls or texts due to an emergency or some other thing that causes you to have to stop gaming and do something else outside the game. That can’t be helped sometimes, but to continuously stop gaming to text etc…. is a no go. My time is important to me also so have some respect for your opponent.
Second one, don’t mind if you have a beer or two during a game but when you start drinking to the point that it effects you mood in any way, I’m done. Just don’t have time for that and I lump that into the same area as having no respect for those you are playing with.
Probably have some more but those are my two biggest!
Great show again as usual. Thanks guys!!!!!

When it comes to board-formatted wargames, @brennon … GO FOR IT. Take the plunge. I’ll have you sitting at a Panzer Leader table before you know it.

Bwa ha ha ha ha!

THEN you can say you are a “wargame commander.” 😀