Reply To: Please Change my Mind and Point of View

[crazyredcoatParticipant 13642xp 1]

I think the line (for want of a better word) there comes at the point that ‘miniatures’ are no longer needed or practical. I’d probably classify the games @oriskany is discussing as being ‘Grand Strategy’ and at such levels it’s not always practical to represent, say, an armoured division with a stand of minis and often such games reduce that aspect to a token. I have a friend who loves that style of game and has a whole bunch that relate to the War of 1812 (or Anglo-American War, as it’s sometimes referred). In that sense, these types of games lack one part of what we think of as the hobby as a whole; the physical minis.

Perhaps that is where this divide in popularity comes from. From a personal point of view, I find these styles of games to be less interesting because of that reason, but others find the opposite (one of those ‘this is why there’s no such thing as a perfect game’ points). I’d guess that the majority of the community here is firmly in the mini camp and even when it comes to board games here the more popular things you will see are board games that involve minis such as Warhammer Quest and games of that ilk. People like their tiny fighting men and that may be a bigger divide than people realise. From my own point of view if you were to say ‘the hobby’ to me I would have a very specific view and that view would always include a miniature of some kind and not wooden or cardboard tokens to represent units. That’s obviously personal to me and I’m sure Jim would see the hobby differently as I’m sure a lot of people here would. Perhaps that’s a gap we haven’t really considered. I’ll be honest, it only really occurred to me when I looked through Jim’s last post here.