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Weekender XLBS: Industry Growth Report & How To Avoid Campaign Fatigue?
July 30, 2017 by dignity
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Happy SUNDAY!
So just wanted to give a bit of feedback, and sorry for being a little late on it I was doing videos for WAYPN 😐
First off thanks to @diginity @warzan and whoever else was responsible for giving me the button, but I noticed how you muted it properly because of the sound of defeat in our voices on how long it took to get to that stage ha ha ha.
I am glad you guys liked it.
@warzn when it comes business side I think you nailed like a lot of the ‘common sense’ wisdom, they were so focused on the wrong things they couldn’t even see the ‘intangibles’ that is a legit business term for assets you can’t slot somewhere 😐 come on business guys you know you sound like a parody of yourselves.
But you hit the nail on the head when you said people want to like them, it almost like a tale of two companies because over there they are really pushing forward on things here in Australia they still have their draconian policies in place and their prices are freaking stupid, so much so that I could order retail from the UK and have someone ship it here for me and I would still save money. Yes, I am still salty.
Okay, guys, I will leave you to it.
Great show, I was really interested in the community spotlight and the business talk at the end 🙂
Happy off to work at five to six on a Sunday morning lol. I’ve been playing 40k on and off since 96, and I’ve yet to play a campaign, so yet to experience campaign fatigue 😛
Good show.
For Manny just replace the word. When he’s around you and your wife say something like Nack and have her act like you just swore. Manny will stop saying peeness and start saying Nack. Anything works just keep it one syllable and say it like you would a swear word.
Happy Sunday everyone
I was expecting a shorter show to day especially when Warren got the message on his watch telling him he had to go home for his tea.Or maybe he had to go clean up up some peeness
With respect to GW’s growth & its competitive position vs other mini companies — their distribution quality has to factor into it.
It may not be obvious from the UK or US, but here in Australia (and I assume many other relatively small markets) GW is basically the only manufacturer with reliable availability. Pretty much every other game is hard to commit to because they go randomly in and out of stock and can have reduced ranges.
I am sure it is not the main reason, but it has to be an influence. Its certainly a reason I’ve spent an easy $1000 on GW this year so far.
Has their distribution in Australia gotten better over the last year or has it always been like this?
Distribution for GW is fine one could even say they are the top of the market. @jamesedwards isn’t wrong in say they are almost the only people down here.
Price is their problem…
GW has proper stores in a number of cities that are always fully stocked. My opinion is that the Sydney CBD (so presumably the main one) is running very well now after they switched back to two-man stores.
GW store availability is 100% and has been for years. More & more online & FLGS retailers are not stocking them however, apparently because they don’t fulfill their orders very well (and the margin is low of course).
It’s got better. A lot better.
Since we have to import almost everything from overseas out of stock is much more of a pain. GW are very good at getting enough stock in country even if it’s not at your local store.
Sometimes independent stockists can’t get certain companies products back in stock for months. Also we lack a lot of specialist direct order stuff from other companies whereas with GW we can pick up that one mini and get it sent to a store near us for free instead of having to wait a month.
People, especially here in Australia, are also buying GW again because of things like the get started boxes making it affordable. We get slapped with pretty high prices here with a box of Tactical Marines currently costing $65 which is equivalent to £40 as opposed to the UK price of £25.
We like to think GW listens to the community here at least far more than they used to and the managers certainly do. When the White Dwarf with the free Hobbit supplement came out dedicated lotr fans went to some stores and bought out all the remaining copies at the end of the week just to show GW that they are on the right track.
That being said GW is a pain for stockists and recently two big independent stockists stopped selling their products so there is room for improvement.
I don’t think it’s just Australia .Even in Northern Ireland a local shop game/model has to order £x ( in the hundred of pounds) of stock before the distributor will send it as it to go by specialist courier due to it including aerosols etc so we stuff it if stick while the owner has to let several lines run down before it’s worth him doing a reorder
The last bit didnt make sense sorry. It should say do we have to wait as the owner…..
I continue for campaigns you need to make them short end sweet Run them them over a couple of days. Not sure if running them as series of scenarios necessarily works either. From experience get everyone in the room for 1 or 2 days with a map on the wall and let them at it.
*I think for campaigns…..
That’s my preference also. The last longer form campaign I did was for WFB and it just turned into a grind. By the end it felt like an obligation and a chore rather than something I was doing for enjoyment.
For these global campaigns I do wonder how many games are actually being played or if people are just making up results when sitting in front of the computer on a wet Wednesday night and bored with nothing else to do..
Keep drinking from your new mug Warren, it’ll proxy for having to take iron tablets! ; )
Happy Sunday!
Definitely need some hobby time myself today and the rest of this week!
During physical tournaments I have no issues with side-show competitions about painting, modelling, epic cinematic game moments and so forth, but position in the tournament itself needs to be about pure gameplay and objectives.
So in an online campaign, sure, give people recognition and badges etc to encourage the hobby side – but don’t let that influence the main outcomes. People will just game this unverifiable source of reward.
Heck, lets be honest, how verifiable are some of the results people are feeding in anyway?
I guess you mean Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, Warren? As for Exit, if you did an actual escape room how much would you pay? Probably a fair bit more than the cost of the game. We’ve inbuilt expectations of what games should be, but when considering them as entertainment, and comparing them to other forms of entertainment, you can see why once most people try a good ‘play once’ game, they have no issue with it.
Absolutely, provided it’s ‘simple’ enough that you play it correctly (mechanics wise)
I’d have to have that moment where I realise “ahh crap I’ve been playing this sequence wrong and even torn the wrong cards etc” 🙂
I guess the perceived problem is that you can’t be sure how much game play your going to get. If you have to spend 40 odd hours at it then it’s probably worth it . If you manage to complete it in a couple of hours then maybe not
A T.I.M.E. Stories scenario takes us about three hours and costs £20. We buy every one as soon as it comes out.
To expand a little, £20 for what we consider an evening of quality entertainment for four people is something we find to be well worth it. Sure, we could spend that on a game we could play every evening, but ‘play once’ games can do things that other games can’t, and we’re very happy to pay for that experience.
It is fascinating how irrationally people peg the prices they will pay (including me).
I’ll think nothing of paying $100+ for a dinner for 2 that lasts 90 minutes, but balk at paying the same for a game if I worry I will only get a couple of plays out of it.
I’m consciously trying to change that attitude but it persists & I hear it implicitly from others.
A dinner is obviously by its nature consumable. No matter how much you pay for it, you’re only going to eat it once (hopefully lol). A game doesn’t have to be. You can play lots of games over and over again for a one-off cost. That said, you don’t have to pay anything like $100+ to eat a meal. At that point you’re paying for the experience (superior food, setting, company, etc.). Once you get over that initial hump and realise with a once-only game you’re paying for an experience, is when you start seeing it in the same way as an expensive meal, trip to the cinema, etc.
There are times when part of the role of the game is to help engage a broader social get together over one or many sessions. Probably co-op or team based, with the facility for people to drop in an out as needs be.
“Whose turn to cook?” ” I’d better deal with the crying baby!” or even “sorry guys, we can’t make this session but we’ll pick up wherever you get to the following week” are all scenarios a good game will accommodate – even legacy.
You have to think that the best of both worlds can be achieved with legacy style games using interactive tech if there is the opportunity for replayability.
Certain game mechanics effected by earlier decisions can be kept ‘black box’ from the participants which – unless you follow the exact same path the next ti e means you get surprising changes.
Not that I don’t see a place for a single use legacy game @£15-£20 for a group of 4-6 wanting an evening’s entertainment. Providing no one’s eliminated too early.
On the GW campaign topics and the ‘pay to win’ description.
I don’t think that title really fits.It feels more like an wider range of options to participate.
This is so that campaigns appeal to more than only gamers. Loads of people are involved in the hobby for different areas, most notably collecting, painting and gaming. This means everyone has an option.
There’s only a limited number of ‘boxes to tick’ for purchases (6) too, so you can’t just buy your faction to victory. As you said, that one player’s contribution in on a faction wide scale Just my perspective
🙂
If you do get points for your faction for buying product, even if it’s not many, then it is undoubtedly to encourage purchases. It’d be naive to think otherwise. GW didn’t get to be as successful as they are without being a ruthless sales machine (no criticism is implied there). Most games which are expensive to play have an implicit pay to win element anyway. It’s hard to be successful at Magic if you can’t afford to get the best cards. Likewise, building a competitive army for a GW game can be very expensive. I recall running a Warriors of Chaos army when 8th ed came out, and finding the new rules meant spending £200 on one unit if I wanted a competitive list. I haven’t paid attention to the X-Wing meta for a while, but early on there was a competitive list that ran three of an upgrade card, that came one-of with the Millennium Falcon. You wanted to run that list, you had to buy three Millennium Falcons.
This is just a more naked ‘pay to win’ element as it directly rewards you for the purchase, regardless of how skillfully you can use it. In some respects it democratises pay to win because as long as you can pay, you will win (or get campaign points in this instance). It does echo Merrett’s infamous claim that the GW hobby was buying miniatures, so perhaps reflects the mentality has outlived him there.
About the retailers: There was a little hobby store here and it was mostly Games Workshop and FFG products. Then Warlord games and flames of war started up and they started selling that.
But there were a lot of other games that he wanted to sell be he was not able to because of bringing it in plus stocking and displaying the product. He sold a bit of Rackham and later a bit of Warmachine but that didn’t seem to sell much but that could have been because he didn’t have much anyway.
Those VTOL’s do look a lot like those from Avatar.
The churn of games makes it difficult for a FLGS to pick what to put on their shelves. Most of them are also subject to the vaguaries of multiple suppliers/distributors with often limited stocks when games peak.
I guess each store hopes to have some stable ranges – GW, MtG now SW:Destiny and X:Wing are usually safe. But that means the smaller companies struggle for a look in.
The industry has quickly grown a ‘Long Tail’ of ranges and products which the internet can always support, but the FLGS still has a critical part to play. I’d like to see distributors setting up click&collect services with and through their network of stores. The stores get to learn what lines are popular or growing in their customer base and therefore know what to find shelf space for.
We didn’t have time to get into this aspect of it, though I did discuss in the article I wrote on the ICv2 survey. Whilst the market is growing rapidly, new releases are outpacing even this. It’s leading to short shelf lives for games and makes it hard for stores to know what to order in. Even evergreen titles are starting to decline, albeit ICv2 speculate that mass channel stores are likely compensating there. It means that if I were looking launch titles into the current market, I’d want them to be games that could thrive off a short shelf and which didn’t need to take up much shelf space, or have many SKUs. Which is bad for wargaming as those by their nature need both shelf life and shelf space.
Happy sunday everyone,
I would buy at least two of those mugs.
Just had that moment where you write a long comment and then it doesn’t send due to no real reason :'(
To summarize,
Good to see you Gerry and a new type of model project we don’t often see.
For those who don’t know him have a read about Charles Upham who won 2 VC and didn’t die. Love the bit with the Italians when he got stuck in the mud in a Jeep while going through enemy lines with urgent intel.
@warzan did GW use the in store campaign to make sure the numbers were right and there was no cheating in the campaign and maybe to see what armies and unit choices were most popular.
Campaigns at club level I love them. Ideally have someone run the campaign for the best results. Have them play using their armies as mercenaries for players to bribe and hire or as a random event game each player will face so no investment in the campaign itself but they still have a lot of fun.
1. Keep them short and sweet.
2. Have a map either digital or physical. People don’t like having what supposed to be theirs invaded even if it isn’t real.
3. Start with a large force and have players use hidden deployment splitting down their force to the various locations they control. If a big game is 1500 points have their starting forces 9000 points and give them 8-10 locations or points of interest.
4. Throw away certain rules such as force organisation after selecting you initial force, makes for a much more fun campaign as rarely will each smaller force be totally balanced.
5. Use history as a framework, pretty much all wargames can be mirrored to history. Ancient/Medieval: Fantasy, Gunpowder: Steampunk, sci fi: modern day, naval: space combat. So loads of pretty much pre built campaigns in history.
6. Try and stay away from the rulebook scenarios, use the hidden deployment to make unusual match ups and scenarios, rear guard, intel runs, spec ops missions to grab the HQ, sabotage, scout, you may find 3 troops choices against 1 heavy choice of 3 artillery pieces not a good match up depending on terrain. Makes you think mutual support.
7. Have resource significant locations, depots, field hospitals, towns, cities. These will lead to the bigger battles as most of them are fought in defence of or to take key areas but also allow for you to add rules such as roll for the dead which would be done after each game. This can even be done with just the Campaign Manager so opponents don’t know how many survived.
8. Encourage off table politics between players, alliances and non aggression pacts.
9. Put in treaties and rules of engagements for the forces, making surrender an option and then more scenarios for breaking out POW’s.
10. Use the core rules but be imaginative in the game options and people will keep playing to the end of the campaign but more important will look forward to the next one.
Happy sunday folks
I’ve played in multiple campaigns over the past few years and found that fatigue does indeed kick in.
Club 40k campaign last year, people dropped out because they missed a week or 2 and didn’t want to rejoin which then snowballed very quickly for their team and others gave up as they felt at a disadvantage before we could re-adjust the teams so it died on it’s ass mid-way through.
I’ve seen others drop out because something new and shiner has come out midway through and their interest is immediately diverted elsewhere – Other club joined Warlord’s Bolt Action campaign a few years ago, only to have it stifled out by people jumping onto the Infinity bandwagon, which itself died out a few months later.
I find short-sharp campaigns seem to work best, multiple games played over a weekend or 2 for example, as attention spans are held for the event without too much distraction – rel-world or shiny! 🙂
Happy sunday everyone!
And thank you so so much! Best birthday present! I’m so honored to be in the community spotlight with @caladors and @gorillawithabrush Absolutely stunning work they’ve done *beams*
As for campaigns…I’d love to see the possibility to contribute through painting. I’m often short for time or people to play with. Causing me to have loads of games I never play, simply for the minies. Like Gates of Antares. Or Hordes. I’d jump at the chance to help through oainting if I could 🙂
Oh, btw..@warzan I’d definitely be buying that mug too (and my boyfriend would shake his head in disbelief…but the, he’s useally saying I’m out-geeking him :p). Butbthat is just one AWESOME mug. Grow a cactus in it..now that you can’t drink from it. Let him have prickly hair :p
Looking forward to next Hobby Night Live. No clue what I’m going to work on though, now that Calth is done. Still hoping for a (permanent?) chest cam on John :p. Oh, and I’ll just do a general shout-out for Lance’s stream until then…if you’re not watching those, you’re missing out.
Thanks for once again starting my sunday off perfect 🙂
Ha ha 😀 I glad you think that you’re sharing good company because so do I but I am like ohhh how did I get here ha ha ha
I am a bit that way with the idea of what to do on hobby night but I am a little worried about it :/
That thing is I am worried I won’t get it all done I am pretty slow at painting this up at the best of time :/
HNL is not about finishing mate, it’s about having fun starting 🙂 @caladors
You obviously didn’t hear the audio we weren’t having fun getting it moving ha ha.
BUT! It is great actually having it together and it is almost finished now 😀
I think for campaigns you need to think carefully about the rules you use. Now for 40k I guess that’s not really an option but when we did our ancients campaign we decided on DBA. Not that they are the best rules but because you can get games done in 40 minutes to and hour
LMAO at the thumbnail picture! 😀 I could see that Justin’s famous high metabolism has been fading, what with his double chin growing (sorry Justin, the camera never lies) but this thumbnail is such a perfect prediction of future Justin. Except for the fact there is too much hair. 😀
And then I saw the show and the pee-ness, lol!!! 😀
GW is going to be doing something along the lines of CCG’s with their Shadespire warband card based game, so perhaps that will be an attempt to get into that market.
I’m glad GW is doing well, I think it would be rather sad and a huge shame if they were to go under.
I don’t see myself entering a campaign unless I completely free from the outside world; I would have to take a holiday just to be free enough to regularly take part in one.
Shame about the skull mug!
Good show guys!
Re: campaigns, I think as others have said that the key is to make them as short as possible. Preferably run over a single weekend, or perhaps over the course of a few weekends, and building up to a grand finale that everone wants to take part in. In that case it’s probably best to view that final game as _the_ campaign, which people can commit to in adance, and then see everything else leading up to it as an optional extra to help set up the climax.
An alternative would be a campaign which rewards failure. We’re used to the problem of success leading to success and this excluding losers or making people feel that there’s no point in continuing. Perhaps we should aproach it from a roleplaying perspective where the aim of the campaign is to tell a story and the goals of each faction or player are not necessarily tied to whether they finish first or not. And the ongoing ‘experience’ system works likewise. So after game one, the winner receives ‘+1 ammunition’ to reflect their success, but the loser receives ‘+1 wilderness survival’ as they are driven out of their homes and adapt to their new conditions. So games have an impact, and there are consequences for winning and losing… But even losing repeatedly needn’t actually penalise players in game terms.
Finally: I agree that key to GW’s success has been re-engaging with the community. Part of the evidence for this I think is that we can see it with other companies. Those with engaging ‘front men’ (Ronnie at Mantic, Carlos at Infinity, Leo at Mythic, Dave at Hawk Wargames, etc.) give players something that sounds optional but which is probably close to essential in today’s gaming market: continuity and community. Without those factors, players don’t perceive a game to be alive or prospering, and lose interest in making the effort to play it when they could be doing something that is supported.
Really enjoyed both of this weekends shows
Great weekender XLBS this week. Lots of passionate and insightful exposition.
I like when Gerry is on. Give that man a job. Lol.
I like you, where should I send the money?
Great show guys, really enjoyed the industry news talk and to finally see @redben 🙂
As far as the issue with Conan at retail, I think it might also be down to the fact that the first print of the rules is so poor it made the game also impossible to play!
I’m taking it as a win if my pugly mug means lost backstagers is just in double figures lol
I corresponded with Z-man Games in 2015 about the issue of not being able to play through the Legacy edition(s) of Pandemic more than once ( without buying a second copy ), and also the issue of the lowering of the quality of components since the first edition of Pandemic. They wrote that “when a game reaches such a large market, any editor need to adjust its producing cost to maintain an advantageous margin”. I suspect it has more to do with Z-man Games being bought in 2011 and then perhaps any anticipation there was of being bought by Asmodee, which happened in 2016. In any case i think it’s fairly clear that they were intending people to play Pandemic Legacy Seasons 1 and 2 more than once because they made two different colour boxes for each season, which has no other function other than distinguishing one copy of Pandemic Legacy from another of the same Season. So there it is.
I’ve been put off buying into crowdfunders precisely because there were parts of the game, such as miniatures and even scenarios, that were ‘crowdfunder exclusive’ and as such they wouldn’t be available after the crowdfunder. This doesn’t matter to me with things that are not *really* part of the game, such as cross over miniatures with other franchises or t-shirts, or mugs, etc, but it matters a lot if it’s a scenario, or if there’s a number of miniatures that i might want to buy after the crowdfunder to add to my army or dungeon or whatever, that don’t have a non-exclusive version. ( The crowdfunders i tend to look at are potential dungeon crawlers and skirmish or battle games, so by their very nature i won’t be able to buy everything that i would want to within the small amount of time alloted by a typical crowdfunder. )
I liked the industry discussion. The new actor playing Ben is very good btw.
Regarding the zombie threat in a Walking Dead campaign: You could track how many characters were killed by zombies, the threat level when each game ended, or how many zombies overall wound up being on the board. Then use that to abstract a global ‘zombie threat’.
Happy sunday!
a great show guys will be a interesting time if GW n Hasbro go head to head love the new flyers from kore.
Great show this week. I’m glad the team is expanding in depth of expertise through specialist presenters and editors. I think this is significantly enhancing the Weekender and general content experience across BoW. The blend of this with the established main presentation team works really well and I feel like I’ve made a very good decision by being a Backstager.
I always enjoy the industry review content and thoroughly enjoyed the discussion. Like Warren I’m very interested to see whether anyone will make a move to acquire GW. From a business perspective I think it is now far less likely than last year. Firstly, the company has begun to show significant growth again and is clearly recovering from their doldrums, and all this before the impact of 8th Ed. which most of us think will be additionally significant too. Also markets have now assimilated the change in the price of sterling and GW’s share price has long since adjusted to reflect the international value of their assets and income streams. This time last year GW shares were at 495p and now are over 1600p. The time to buy this asset and realise any value quickly has long gone.
As to Hasbro as a potential suitor I’m not sure this is a good fit for either company. Hasbro aren’t going to realise much from overskins of their main product line using GW IPs. Who amonst us is really interested in a Grim Dark Monopoly or Inquisitor Cluedo? If there isn’t much love for it amonst us what chance of mass market appeal? Hasbro hardly covered themselves in glory with the WotC purchase and although they may have learnt much about how not to make those mistakes again I think they would struggle to make the case for another foray into a market they aren’t too familiar with. Should they be drawn to the expanding boardgame market their are better targets with much more involvement and potential than GW.
Great weekender. Fun to ramble, but I bet Ben would have helped keep the show to under 2 hours. (When the cats away…) 🙂
Campaigns.
I enjoyed getting some battle reports in for Operation Flame Strike, but have yet to experience local club campaigns. I could have gotten involved with Wotan, but just didn’t find the time and my local players pool are at the early stages of learning Infinity and haven’t gotten 300 pts lists or understanding of the full game rules at this stage.
I sympathise with people not getting responses to texts when you’re trying to schedule games. When I played rugby I made a point of responding asap about availability because I realised that arranging fixtures is not an easy task and that rugby was my chosen hobby. It’s OK if people want to try to juggle a dozen hobbies, but it is frustrating when they either fail to live up to a commitment or fail to communicate. War gaming is my main hobby now, so I am reluctant to pull out of a match up unless I really can’t make it.
I think the barriers to campaigning are finding someone enthused enough to get it started and having the energy to keep it going, having the terrain that match the narrative or region in the campaign and not having any specific miniatures or supplements required to play.
You’ll never be able to please everyone, but with Warlord Games’ Operation Sea Lion campaign I didn’t want to get involved even though I love Bolt Action. I didn’t have the funds to commit to the Dad’s Army miniatures set, didn’t want to buy the supplement that went with it, didn’t really have the terrain I would have liked to portray the battles and (because the length of the campaign seems to be quite long) I am left waiting for another opportunity to engage as the focus remains somewhere I didn’t want to venture. This won’t impact on my love for the game, but does show how campaigns won’t always sweep their fan base up in a desired direction.
The Walking Dead global campaign would be awesome. I think any Post-Apocalyptic game would be great, because the way you carve up the world is entirely up to you, factions can be just based on survivor groups rather than tying yourself to nations or factions, the camp or base building aspect could be a fun and the AI faction / Zombie Horde dynamic will allow the people overseeing it to manage the threats and drive a narrative effectively.
Even a game designed for campaigning can be awkward to get off the ground. Frostgrave is a great system, but having the right terrain really affects the experience. Having the right terrain for the right battles may make scheduling slightly more awkward, because I’ve found that a lot of items are homemade, bespoke and not shared in a communal club terrain kind of way.
Games Workshop results
There are still a number of GW haters out there after bitter years of complaints about price and lack of engagement. The figures are a good thing for the industry generally, but will success allow GW to slip into an arrogant frame of mind again? The improvement in engagement seems to be a genuine change rather than a veneer just for PR. As far as I and a lot of people I know the pricing model is still not fair and is putting off people spending. Even though their sales figures seem to suggest that they shouldn’t concern themselves with price, there are still people ready to spend even more if the pricing was right. £22.50 for one 28mm miniature is not acceptable to my mind. Some of the companies that have made great gains while the giant slept will struggle now that he’s awake, but GW should realise that some of these companies’ success had been gained by appearing fair in their pricing model.
The part time, one man shops have helped the GW remain on the high-street during the tail end of a vicious recession, but personally working shifts and not being able to shop on a Monday or Tuesday locally is frustrating. An improvement in staff numbers or opening hours would be a welcome way for them to spend some of their profits and would no doubt benefit them in the long run.
Really enjoyed the market talk and getting more depth on how the industry works and what is working now. This is a great addition to the XLBS Weekender and it would be fun to hear from more of the creators and other industry insiders.
@warzan I would have bought the skull mug too, have you seen these? https://grimfrost.com/collections/drinking-horns
I love Necromunda and the simple campaign system it has. I got into Infinity because it brought out Campaign Paradiso. A walk through campaign. They should do a new N3version of it.
And yes The Walking Dead with base building and/or a walk through campaign would be awesome. Just make more war games with a campaign system in it or added to it.
Great show.
Warzan, that cup is hideous.
I expected Red Ben to look more……Communist regalia attired. Maybe the Red Gobbo mini in my miniature cabinet is responsible for that though.
Regarding Campaigns;
I’ve been involved in various campaigns over the last 35 years of gaming and the best ones have a 4X (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate) feel regardless of the setting level (ie gangs, company, army, geopolitical etc). The opportunity to include all 4 aspects takes a campaign to the highest levels.
So how do you include them? Well…
1) Have a map. The best ones are known in totality only by the creator/GM This allows for fog of war and exploration.
2) Allow players the options to settle, conquer, raid or raze new territories. Some players will want to build, some will want to take and others will want to destroy. Let them make the decision which they want to do. It’s easy to limit people from massive land grabs with an action point system like 5 AP each player, raids cost 1 AP, Razing and settling costs 2AP each, conquests cost 3AP, etc.
3) Usually my campaign groups have allowed the customised exploitation of territory such as allowing players to build a small number of structures from a variety of choices (eg town, mine, castle, farm, church, etc,) that each function slightly differently. So they may be able to rake in the money in a territory, but it’s not easily defended, or it’s well defended but has to be supplied from elsewhere.
4) The universe is a cruel place and so allow players to get conquered. Allow alliances and backroom dealing, but also allow players to fall. It’s crap when you get killed BUT a good GM has a back up plan. I was in one campaign where the conquering player was allowed 1 additional combat action per player he conquered. The catch was those players who were conquered became minions that controlled the army being used. One player collected 3 other players before on the turn before he seemed destined to win, they revolted and the 3 of them wiped him out before turning on one another.
Of course I would buy this!
@warzan – You will probably be as shocked as I was to learn that Cards Against Humanity is now available in the toy department of Target stores here in the states, right next to Joking Hazard. I don’t think the buyers have any clue what they have put on the shelf.
As to Weird War Nam, there is Savage Worlds RPG setting called Tour of Darkness that has been out for years. The nice thing about that is there is the free Savage Worlds: Showdown miniature rules that let you easily play things out on the table top, and with a GM the full on RPG rules work well as a minis game as well.
I don’t like seeing a larger company take over smaller companies, because often times something gets ruined because of money and stuff.
When the Armada was shipwrecked a Gallowglass stationed on west coast Ireland named McLaughlin-McCabe killed over 80 half-drowned Spanish sailors with his Sparth Axe – very high total for a solo killing spree – but what chance would he have stood if the Spanish had landed in force as armed invaders?
Always thought it would make a great illustrated book for children 🙂
The Battery of Kinsale would give a little bit of an insight into that
FFFFF 35 mm lets here from Ben, obviously the expert.
Not been able to watch this before now, but interesting chat about campaigns!
You guys inspired me to get into SAGA! So great points brought on by @avernos! We’ve just finished round 1, and two warlords are dead! I’ve had to change factions! Will be getting all the erratas next round!
Two dead warlords in the first season! That’s pretty bloody already.
I would suggest if you can sit down with the errata and the group and see what you need to do to make the scenarios viable, some you may want to take out altogether.
Good luck with the next faction, I’m just starting to work on my Footsore minis, I found out today that the cavalry are coming shortly which will complete my warband.
@avernos Yeah, it was a bit of a shock! We’ll change the table for after your warlord have died, so a 6 is a dead warlord, instead of a 4-5.
Plan on printing all erratas at the HQ tonight and have a read.
Gotta build my army before the next game as well! Doing Jomsvikings, just using the Gripping Beast plastics (if there’s enough Daneaxes!). Got a Saxon Miniatures Norman army now retired becuase the warlord died, but also their vikings and saxons, but want to spend more time on those than the plastics.
The Footsore minis are great, I’ve got some of the late Roman cav (to go alongside my Gripping Beast plastics).