Category Archives: Hobby Musings

“Yesterday’s Lead”

It seems I took the month of January off from blogging, quite accidentally. For Christmas I was gifted with Mass Effect: Andromeda for PS4. It was released back in March of last year, but I’m not the kind of (video) gamer that needs to get a game as soon as it’s released. Thus I tend to spend less money on video games overall, as I can wait until the price drops. I am a huge fan of the Mass Effect series, and although this latest game was (unfairly, IMO) derided,  at least in comparison to the previous trilogy, it has accounted for my free time throughout January.

Anyway, it’s nice to be back.

I rarely pick up Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy magazine these days. Although it’s a fine publication, it’s not for me, as it is primarily geared towards the historical wargamer, and even casual visitors to this site will know I don’t fall into that category. The other day I found myself at my newsagent (see what I did there? I used a British term) by complete happenstance ( I was purchasing coffee and donuts for a work meeting at the Dunkin’ Donuts next door), and, since the latest issue of Miniature Wargames magazine hadn’t arrived yet, I gave in to whimsy and purchased WS&S #92. As expected, it had little to interest me as far as gaming goes. I am unfamiliar with most of the historical periods and battles covered throughout the issue. But what issue #92 did have was a worthy article by the great Rick Priestly, entitled “Time, Tide and Yesterday’s Lead.”

You might think Mr. Priestly waxes nostalgic for the early days of Citadel and Warhammer miniatures, but he quickly sets the record straight. Despite his involvement in Warhammer’s development, his particular enthusiasm is the Minifigs line of the 70’s, as those are what led him down the garden path to wargaming.

I must confess that since I live in the United States and I was born a good decade or so after Mr. Priestly, I am unfamiliar with Minifigs. Like so many others, I started gaming through Dungeons & Dragons, circa 1983 or so. I’m pretty sure I got the red box for my 10th birthday and it took me a year or two to start running “The Keep on the Borderlands.” I never played a miniature wargame until I was in college in the early 90’s. Predictably, my first introduction came through Warhammer 40K, then quickly moved to WFB. But I had already been collecting and painting miniatures before then. Despite all my failed attempts to introduce them into my roleplaying games, I found them really cool (an obviously still do). I certainly share nostalgic feelings for the miniatures that got me started down my own path, some 35 years ago. And those miniatures, primarily, are Grenadier and Ral Partha fantasy figures.

The first set of miniatures I ever bought was the often-reissued Grenadier Tomb of Spells set. It’s the second one down in the left column. Starting from the top left and continuing clockwise, we have Specialists, Hobgoblins, a Dragon Lords set that once included paints, Thieves, Denizens of the Swamp, Orc’s Lair, and Wizards. The Wizards set was the second set of miniatures I ever bought, and I repainted the set a couple of years ago. You can see the results here, if so inclined.

With the arrival of AD&D 2nd Edition, TSR started packaging miniatures under their own name. The above sets are examples of this era. I bought the Marvel Super Heroes and Dragonlance sets when they came out, and a friend gave me the Magic-Users set long ago. The remaining sets were all recent eBay acquisitions.

I probably paid too much for the Indiana Jones set (it’s rare). I paid less than I thought I would for the Star Frontiers and other AD&D sets, but again, probably more than I should have considering the quality. I’ve said this elsewhere: this era of miniature manufacture leaves a lot to be desired. The sculpting is pretty sub-par across the board. Scale is pretty much an afterthought, even between models within the same set (Star Frontiers is by far the WORST for this). I have been painting some of the Marvel miniatures for use in my supers gaming alongside Heroclix models, which should give you a idea of how random the scale is. Some are compatible with Clix models while some are on the small side of 25mm. To top it off, I have no idea what metal was used to cast this line of miniatures, but for some reason, they do not take paint well. Prior to sealing them, even casual handling can cause the paint to rub off, which is kind of a pain during the painting process.

The last of my old sets are above. The Grenadier Secret Agents set is really good, containing lots of mercs and soldiers for use with Top Secret or any other skirmish wargame. Grenadier released two sets of these. I know I had both at one time, but I can’t remember what happened to the other set. (As an aside, the box art above was painted by famous Grimjack artist Flint Henry!) Below them is an exceptional set of ninja by Ral Partha. I recently bought a second set, because as everyone knows, you can never have enough ninja. The bottom row contains dragon models; a Ral Partha T’Char (one of the best dragons produced, IMO) and a couple of Julie Guthrie Grenadier Dragons. I painted up her Red Dragon a while back. You can see it here.

Nostalgia, as Mr. Priestly aptly observes, exerts a powerful force that drives one from affection for times gone by to collector’s obsession. All of the above boxed sets were purchased either on eBay or at a flea market over the last couple of years. With the exception of the Skeleton King’s chariot (top right), all these sets are complete and pristine. (I even managed to replace the 54mm Batman set with one that included a Joker this time.) The DC Heroes sets were a real find at $10 apiece, all bare metal! I painted up the 54mm Batman a few years ago, and recently painted the Grenadier Halfling set above. Batman is here; the Halflings are here.

Which brings me to painting, or rather, repainting. In his article, Mr. Priestly mentions that most Minifigs of the time were likely “favored with a hefty coat of Humbrol Enamel…and then gloss varnished to within an inch of their little metal lives.” Again, I can relate. Here in the States, Testors enamels were the model paints of choice, and I laquered many a miniature in them before “discovering” acrylics right around the time I started playing 40K. Prior to that, every miniature I painted, including many from the sets above, were done with Testors enamels and gloss coat. I shudder to look at them now, but if you’d like to see some before and after shots, look no further than here.

The question then becomes “To strip and repaint, or not to strip and repaint? I am a big advocate of repainting. I’m not the best painter in the world (not even close), but I am exponentially better than I was 35 years ago. I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting the old miniatures I have repainted recently, and I think they are the better for it. But, if even if I were to strip and repaint one miniature every day for the rest of my life, I would likely never finish what I already own, never mind any future tempting purchases. A somewhat sobering and morbid thought, but true nonetheless.

What do you think? Do you get dewey-eyed for a certain manufacturer or era of miniatures? Do you advocate repainting, or are you content with (and perhaps comforted by) viewing your early efforts for what they are?

 

Julie Newmar

 

Like many of you, I often have things playing in the background while I’m painting. Sometimes it’s YouTube videos. Sometimes it’s Old Time Radio programs (Gunsmoke and Rocky Jordan are my favorites).

Sometimes it’s other stuff.

The person who loves me most in the world got me the entire Tales of the Gold Monkey DVD set for Christmas. I just finished watching it while painting dwarfs.

Now, I’ve moved on to the Batman TV series. I bought this for myself a few months back.

It should be said that I was born about 7 years after this show aired on TV. So, my familiarity with Adam West’s Batman was mainly gained through my viewing of the series in reruns as a child. In other words, when you’re 6-7 years old, the camp is lost on you and Batman is cool.

Now, I am an adult. And I am a huge Batman and comic book fan. So watching the old TV series makes me laugh. A lot.

One thing that doesn’t make me laugh, though, is Julie Newmar. Holy crap on toast. She is unbelievably hot. Not even really my type.

But damn.

Just…damn.

Rebasing and Repainting Heroclix

I own a lot of Heroclix miniatures, but I don’t play Heroclix. Instead I use them with my favorite Superhero rules system, Supersystem 3.  I use Heroclix miniatures because I game with established Marvel and DC comics characters rather than creating my own heroes. (Until recently, there was a terrific online  archive of SS3 stats for Marvel and DC Heroes, but that seems to have disappeared. Bummer.) I never liked the Heroclix system. The dials really annoy me, and it doesn’t seem right that heroes gain and lose powers as the dials get clicked.  For example: I think Superman should be able to use his heat vision whenever he wants to fry something, not be limited as to when he can use it based on how much damage he’s taken.

There are a lot of companies making superhero miniatures in 28mm. I would get into some of them, but my fellow supers enthusiast from across the Atlantic, Carrion Crow, has already done that comprehensively over at his blog, and there’s really nothing I can add. (Incidentally, Carrion Crow has done a bunch of articles on converting Heroclix that are well worth the read, as they’re quite inspirational and really show the versatility of these miniatures, even for games outside the Supers genre.)

So why use Heroclix? The answers should be obvious, but…

  • Heroclix have been around for almost 15 years. The range is vast, and chances are you can find a clix model for almost any hero in the Marvel or DC Universe at this point. Most characters, in fact, have multiple sculpts and/or versions.
  • As you will soon see, Heroclix are easy to repaint and rebase (and convert, should you wish to do so).
  • With the exception of some promos and unique figures, most Heroclix models are cheap and easily obtainable. Online retailers such as Miniature Market and Troll and Toad offer a large selection of secondary market singles. eBay is a good place to pick up singles and lots, and don’t underestimate your local Craigslist listings! I picked up a lot of clix on Craigslist.
  • Many Heroclix models can be used for games outside the Supers genre. Thugs, criminals, aliens, cops, and military clix can all be adapted to other games such as pulp, horror or sci-fi, to name but a few. And don’t forget there were several sets of “Horrorclix” as well. Some are tough to find nowadays, but they’re every bit as useful across genres.
  • You can use Heroclix for other games without doing a thing to them, if that’s your preference. They come pre-painted and if you can overlook the dials, they’re ready to go out of the box. Convenient.

The quality of the sculpting and the factory paint jobs seem to have an inverse relationship over the years, at least in my opinion. In the beginning, the sculpting seemed to be generally ok, while the factory paint jobs bordered on the atrocious. As the years and releases accumulated, it seems the reverse is now true. Scale, especially when compared to the earlier releases, is disproportionate. But the paint jobs are generally better.

Still, they’re not good enough for me, so what follows is a tutorial of sorts on working with Heroclix, specifically rebasing and repainting them. I will say in passing that converting Heroclix is a breeze, as they’re made of fairly soft plastic, so weapon/head swaps are easy. (Again, if conversions are your thing, I highly recommend Carrion Crow’s Buffet over in the sidebar, as well as Dick Garrison’s Rantings from Under the Wargames Table.)

Rebasing Heroclix

Base Designs

Heroclix bases have changed over the years. Above you can see the three types of bases. On the left is the original design, in the middle is the original “flying” base design, and on the right is the current design.  A few words about each:

Original clix came with a different-colored ring on the base, denoting the experience level of the model (Yellow=Rookie, Blue=Experienced, and Red=Veteran). This made a difference in the Heroclix points cost for including the model on your team. (A more experienced version of a hero cost more points.) Silver or other colored rings denote unique, promo, or special versions of heroes and villains. Some of these can get quite expensive to purchase on the secondary market, although many, especially from the older sets, have come down a lot in price.

Generally speaking, a more experienced version of a model costs more money on the secondary market, but this isn’t always the case. Regardless, many of these miniatures used the exact same sculpt regardless of experience level (see above) which is great news for those of us who don’t use them for Heroclix, as any version will do. So, just buy the least-expensive version available!

Flying bases come in two varieties, shown above. As you can see, the Human Torch model sits on a plastic disc that fits over the top of the flying base. In contrast, the Green Lantern model has a peg on his foot that fits into the flying base. For whatever reason, flying bases no longer exist in the latest Heroclix sets, and even models that fly are sculpted on the ground, like Ms. Marvel above. I only rebase the flight stands in the “peg-leg” cases like Green Lantern. When rebasing models such as the Human Torch, I pop them off the plastic discs and rebase them without flight stand. (That’s my preference, but YMMV).

The newer bases are bigger and blockier, and have no color rings denoting experience levels (something else they decided to do away with, it seems). Fair warning if you plan on rebasing miniatures on these bases: they are MUCH harder to work with than the earlier colored bases. models are now sculpted onto a plastic crescent, and it’s often easier to remove the crescent from the dial than to remove the model from the crescent.

Rebasing Technique

There are several ways you can remove a Clix model from its dial. First is brute force, which I don’t recommend. Bigger models, such as the Hulk above, can be wrested off the dial without much worry of damaging the model, but why risk it?

The second way is by using a hobby saw or Dremel to saw the figure off the dial. Again, I don’t recommend this as at high cutting speeds, the plastic will melt. This stinks, and can also alter the shape of the model’s feet.

The best method I have found to remove a Heroclix model from its base is the following. First, throw the model (or the flight stand) in the freezer for at least an hour. This makes the plastic brittle. Then, remove it from the dial with a pair of nippy cutters. If you go slow enough, it should pop right off with no problem. Note that clix models with thin legs are vulnerable to snapping even if this method is used, particularly if you don’t take the time to cut slowly. One good thing about Clix, however, is even if they snap, the break is usually clean enough that you can heal it with some superglue. That was the case with the rebased and repainted Judge Dredd model above, and you can’t tell the difference now.

Rebasing Choices

Once you have the model off the dial, it’s up to you what kind of base you want to put it on. I find that Heroclix adhere readily to resin bases with superglue, but you may want to take the added steps of drilling and pinning in order to secure a firm transplant. The Dr. Strange model is based on an old metal RAFM fantasy base. He’s a good example of a transplanted peg-mounted flying base.  Electro is glued to a Micro Arts Studio Tech Base. Power Man is based on an Armorcast Urban Base, while Iceman is based on a piece of MDF, snow-flocked and enhanced by me.

Again, the choice to rebase or not depends on how much you hate the dials. I loathe them, but I’ll still use Clix models on the dial in a pinch. If you want to see an example of an AAR using rebased an repainted Clix (as well as other models), check one out here. If you want to see a Supersystem 3 game using unaltered Clix, look here. I think the first game looks better, but both were a blast regardless.

Repainting

As I said before, it’s no secret to anyone with eyes that Clix models generally have poor paint jobs, especially the early releases. As you can see in the picture above, repainting a Clix model really achieves some dramatic results over the factory paint job, and repainting is a surprisingly easy and often fast option for those who can’t abide poorly painted figures (like me). Above is a before and after comparison. Although not a true before and after, as they are different figures, you can see what a factory painted miniature looks compared to one I’ve repainted. The one on the left is a new “Superman Robot”, which I repainted and rebased to be a perfectly adequate Superman. The one on the right is Marvel’s Beetle. I added highlights rather than a giving him a full repaint.

Step 1: To strip or not to strip?

While it’s easy enough to strip metal miniatures, plastic miniatures such as Heroclix pose a problem, as the chemicals used on metal miniatures will most likely melt plastic. There are many threads on the net regarding stripping plastic miniatures and the best way to do so. Some say Simple Green is the way to go, as it’s non-caustic and won’t melt your plastic miniatures into goo. I haven’t tried it, so I can’t speak to its effectiveness. In fact, I don’t strip Heroclix miniatures at all!

Step 2: Priming and painting

Since I don’t strip my Clix, I have no need to prime them. The factory paint job is perfectly fine as a first coat. Although some of the early Clix models are so heavily painted that you may find subsequent coats obscure detail, this is usually a problem with individual models and is easily remedied by simply using another figure.

In many cases, repainting a Heroclix model is merely a matter of adding highlights rather than starting from scratch. This Northstar miniature was painted with highlights only. In contrast, the green on Iron fist was originally red (it was the only version of him I had), so I needed to paint a dark green basecoat on and highlight from there. Captain America was originally a much lighter blue. I repainted him a darker blue and highlighted upwards.

These criminals and henchmen were completely repainted to give them some variety.

In the above picture, the Thing was given a black wash over his original paint, and then highlights of orange. In addition, I trimmed his eyes because they were way too big on the original paint job. Radioactive Man was repainted a darker basecoat and highlighted upwards, much like Captain America.

Step 3: Going fast

If all you’re doing is highlighting the existing paint job, you can blow through repaints in record time and still enjoy quality results. But here is another tip to speed-painting Clix:

Heroclix generally use the same paint shades, as seen in the picture above. If you want to repaint a lot of Clix all at once, it makes sense to grab a handful of miniatures that use the same colors and do them in batches. Of course, if you need specific heroes and villains, this may not be an option in the short term. But, if you’re planning a game down the road, you may want to paint some miniatures you may not have a use for immediately simply because you’re painting similar colors on the miniatures you do need. For example, even though I have no immediate plans for Superman, I painted him at the same time as Captain America and the Fixer because they use the same colors. Neat, huh?

I plan on doing more Supersystem gaming in the near future, so watch this space for more Clix repaints and AARs!

The Demise of a Campaign

I recently made the decision to pull the plug on my AD&D campaign after several game-free months. It was not as hard as I thought it would be. But it still sucks.

Some quick background: I got the idea for the campaign a few years back. Get my friends to re-create their favorite all-time character for AD&D 3.5, start at 1st level and go. I decided to keep it light and focus on the characters, so I created a world all my own and dumped them in it. It was to be a fairytale-themed game, where familiar characters and situations from classic fairytales-both Mother Goose and Brothers Grimm-often made appearances. I came up with a basic plot: an evil wizard places a curse of eternal darkness on the kingdom, and refuses to lift it unless the princess marries him. The only way he can be stopped is to gather ten special gems with divine properties, scattered all over the world. The characters have a year and a day to lift the curse.

Of course, in truth, the characters have as long as they need to lift the curse. I figured we’d just play the campaign out and once they got all the gems, we’d have the final confrontation. Kind of like in any video game RPG.

Like I said, I wanted to focus primarily on the characters. Each had a story to tell, and truth be told, I wanted the players to care more about them than they normally would, since these are their “favorite” characters. And I wanted to use miniatures, since I had never really used them successfully in a rpg before.

We played the game for a few years and we all seemed to have fun. But we never got very far in the overall story, because our game sessions grew farther and farther apart. In my opinion, here are two reasons I feel the campaign ultimately failed:

1. Too many players: I play with four other guys, all good friends of mine. We’re all around the same age: early forties. Some us have families, some of us don’t. You would think for a game like AD&D, a four-character party would be just about right. And it is. But the simple truth is that coordinating the schedules of five adult men should not be as hard as it has been. It seems that there are nights when 3-4 of us can get together, but the nights when all 5 of us were available and ready to play were rare, even when we attempted to stick to a rigid schedule planned well in advance. Ultimately, I was running the game, and I decided that unless all of us were available, I wouldn’t run my campaign. I wanted all my players in order to run the game, because I wanted all the characters there for the story.

2. Miniatures are a bitch: especially when you’re the only one buying and painting all of them. I look at all the miniatures I purchased over the last 2-3 years, and at least half of them were bought solely for this game. The expense is not the issue…it’s the time I needed to devote to painting. I chose some monsters I already had (like GW Orcs and Goblins, of which I had an entire WFB army) for the first leg of the campaign, which allowed me to paint miniatures I would need for down the road. The theory was that by the time we got to a particular point in the campaign, the miniatures would be ready. Of course it didn’t work out that way. Real life gets in the way of painting, too; and I needed to take a couple of brief hiatuses from running the game in order to catch up on the painting. In the meantime, someone else would run something. Even though using the miniatures was fun, the amount of time needed to buy and paint them took up a lot of time we could have been playing. And I don’t know about you, but when I HAVE to paint something, it seems like work and takes a lot of the joy out of painting. (I’d rather paint those Wargames Factory Greatcoats, but I need the three gnome NPCs the players are going to meet, as well as the Elven Swordmaster they’re going to encounter and the Otyugh they’re going to fight, all by Saturday night. This happened a lot.)

By the time I pulled the plug last month, we hadn’t played as a complete group since early November. Granted, the holidays are bad; but we always managed before. In addition I hadn’t painted one miniature since early December. Partly that’s because I got obsessed with Batman: Arkham City and played that until my fingers bled. But I stopped playing that in January and I didn’t return to painting until last week, mainly because I just didn’t feel like it.

I think the reality of our gaming situation is that we can no longer seem to commit to a long-term game as a group. Sure, we can play one-shots or short 2-3 session games, but the days of a long campaign in any rpg system seem to be behind us. That makes me sad. If you asked any one of us, we would all say we would like to play more. We all miss those weekly gaming sessions when we were in high school or college, but that’s just not us anymore. I guess its better-for our group, at least- to game when we can with whoever can make it, and play whatever we can; whether it’s miniatures skirmish, published adventures with pre-generated characters, or just a quick one-off here and there.

It’s better than not playing at all, right?

When does painting = work?

Lately I have a problem: I can’t seem to get excited about painting. The reason is simple: it feels like it’s something I have to do, not something I want to do. In other words, it’s a lot like work.

I run an ongoing AD&D campaign, and I use miniatures for that. Which means that in addition to the normal prep work of getting an adventure together, I need to find time to paint miniatures in time for when they will be needed. So far, my method has been to paint up a bunch of stuff for a good story arc or two, then take a brief hiatus while one of my friends runs something for a while. In the meantime, I paint more miniatures to be used the next time I run my campaign. So far it’s worked pretty well. But now it’s starting to get on my nerves.

With all the miniature gaming I’ve been doing lately (and all the miniature gaming I want to do) there are a whole lot of things I would rather be painting than the miniatures required for my AD&D game. And they’re all just sitting there in the insanity pile. So, although I’d love to get my Dreadball teams painted; or start that new proxy Imperial Guard army with Wargames Factory Greatcoats; or paint those damn WFB High Elves and Dwarfs that are still mostly unpainted; or paint any of the (many) Clan War miniatures I have; or repaint some Heroclix for a SS3 scenario or two; or build and paint some scenery (for anything); or paint those Terminators and Genestealers for Space Hulk; or paint some Hydra Retro Raygun or Bob Murch’s Pulp Figures; or dive head first into Western miniatures for some Wild West skirmish; or even paint some fantasy miniatures that I’m in no hurry to use for an upcoming game…I can’t. (And those are just the examples I can think of off the top of my head. If I was home, where my miniatures are, I could list a lot more.)

I can’t because I need 20 kobolds, a female cleric, a griffon and a gelatinous cube by next week. (Note: I don’t actually need any of this stuff, but my players read this, so I’m wary of giving anything away.)

It’s kind of like all those books I never appreciated when I was forced to read them for school, but loved when I reread them later in life. If I feel obligated to do something, it kind of sucks the joy out of it.

Don’t get me wrong: I’d love to paint any miniature as opposed to, say, shovel snow or rake leaves. But I find I spend less time per session at the painting table, because I just can’t get into it. Which of course makes the overall job that much longer.

I’d be interested to hear some thoughts on this from other gamers and miniature enthusiasts. I’m curious to know if any of you experience the same thing from time to time, or if it’s just me finding problems with everything, including my hobbies. I’m particularly interested in any professional painters out there, considering that for you, it actually IS work. What happens if someone commissions you to paint something that you hate painting ? How do you get motivated to do it (aside from the fact that you’re getting paid)? When do you ever have time to paint your own stuff?

Games Workshop: WTF?

Like many FLGS’s, one of the local stores I patronize regularly has had to come up with inventive ways of competing with online discounters. This place has loads of old lead, including lots of GW stuff from the past 10 years or so, still new in the box. His compete strategy is simple: if you buy anything other than GW, he gives you a gift certificate for 30% of the purchase value towards anything in the store aside from GW stuff. For GW stuff, he gives you a $20 gift certificate for every $100 you spend.

That’s a pretty good deal, I would say. Or is it? It sure is as far as the non-GW stuff goes. But for the GW stuff, I’m not so sure.

Let me explain.

I recently accrued $100 worth of GW purchases at the store, so I had a $20 credit burning a hole in my pocket. I don’t buy any of the new stuff, since I never play the games anymore. What did I buy? Lots of individual regiment boxes for armies I don’t play, mainly for use in skirmish games and as cannon fodder for my AD&D game. For example, I bought a unit box of Empire Swordsmen for $30 there (I told you he has a lot of stuff still new in box, priced according to when he ordered them…in this case I’d say about 8 years ago or so.) I also bought a bunch of metal miniatures considering he sells all his old metal GW stuff for half price.

Well, I now have a gaming table that I’m hoping gets a lot of use. I have a couple of armies  for both their games, but like many gamers I always consider more. So yesterday I went to the store, thinking I might plop down a decent chunk of change on a battalion box, either for 40K or WFB. Why not? He has some battalion boxes from 8-9 years ago still on the shelf, and they’re priced accordingly as low as $90. Take $20 off that, and it’s starting to look like a deal, depending on the army you pick.

I looked at all the battalion boxes he had for sale for both games, and let me tell you, there’s a huge difference in what you get for what you spend, both across armies and across time.

He had two versions of the Empire Battalion box. (Since I already bought a box of swordsmen, I considered getting a battalion and having an Empire army ready to go.) Both versions contained 20 State Troops, 10 Handgunners, and 8 Reiksguard Knights. One also came with a Cannon and crew, the other came with 10 Greatswords instead. The Cannon was the cheaper choice: it was $90. The Greatswords cost $105. (This is the current version available on the GW website.) Maybe a little expensive, but not a terrible deal, considering you get over 40 miniatures per box.

The best deal I found was a Skaven Battalion, which contained 40 Clanrats, 20 Plague Monks, 2 Rat Ogres with Handler, and 2 Rat Swarms with Handlers for $115. These are the old syle Skaven, not the new ones. But with over 60 miniatures, it’s not a bad deal.

But these are either old WFB Battalions, or they’re the exception. The newer ones have fewer figures. and they cost more. And they changed the game itself to favor more miniatures and bigger units.

As far as old 40K Battalions went, the ones with the most miniatures for the money were the Tyranids and the Tau. I don’t want or need more Tyranids, and I don’t know anything about the Tau. Maybe if he had one of the older Tau codices there I would have considered buying it since it was priced at $90 and included 10 Fire Warriors, 3 Stealth Suits, 1 Battlesuit, 1 Devilfish Tank, and 12 Kroots. But I’m not buying a new codex for $45, and I don’t even own the latest version of the game.

This month GW released the new Eldar models, and everyone is outraged at the price hike. The Eldar Battalion is especially egregious. You get a total of 17 miniatures: 10 Guardians, 5 Dire Avengers, a Viper Jetbike, and a Wave Serpent tank. For $115. Now, GW will have its fanboys who think this is “really a good deal for what you’re getting, especially given the quality of the models”, but that’s just bullshit. And yeah, you get a tank. Big fucking deal. See the Tau above. 15 troops does not a Battalion make. They used to sell WFB regiments of 20 miniatures for 30 bucks! I know: I just bought some!

So, back to my original question: is $20 off already inflated prices actually a good deal? Or has GW’s pricing plan pretty much invalidated what this poor store owner is trying to do? By anyone’s estimation, 20 bucks off is a pretty good deal. Unless you’re paying way too much for what you’re getting to begin with. Not the owner’s fault, but he’s the one who stocks the items and has to deal with the crap from people who hate GW’s prices, who then buy from someone online. As he put it to me yesterday, “People only come to me if I’m their last resort. They need it tomorrow or something like that.”

Despite what you may think, this isn’t really a rant on GW’s prices, although any discussion about GW is bound to get around to pricing eventually (and it’s not hard to see why). It’s a speculation about what the fuck GW is really doing. Let me repeat that: this is pure speculation. I have no real knowledge of GW’s business plan or goals.

For retailers, there are already a ton of restrictions when it comes to selling GW stuff, even online. Recently, I have heard that the War Store has had to stop selling GW bits or risk losing the ability to sell GW at all, which they do for 20% off already, although they are forbidden to show any prices and/or merchandise on the site. How long do you think that will continue? And if the War Store and online sellers are having problems with the restrictions, how much trouble do you think the FLGS owner in his brick and mortar place can ever begin to compete? He can’t, really. Unless he’s a GW store.

Which makes me wonder if GW is actually trying to price the retailer out of the market, so that anyone who wants to buy GW stuff will have to buy directly from GW. it seems like a dumb idea, but is it really? No more wholesale sales to retailers, and they can charge what they want. While they can’t control the secondary market, they can make all the new stuff impossible to get for less than whatever they want to charge. While it cuts their third-party distribution network and limits exposure to their games, they have enough money to open new stores. Seems like a shitty business practice to me, but what do I know? All I know is FLGS owners everywhere aren’t moving GW stuff as much as they should, because most people consider retail too expensive and get it online for cheaper. What if that suddenly went away? Who would benefit?

I’m really trying to figure out GW’s game plan here. It reminds me of something that happened in the mid-90’s, when I was working in a comic book store. Anyone familiar with the crash of the comics market in the 90’s knows there were plenty of bad marketing ideas that capitalized on collectors’-especially new collectors’-unrealistic expectations of the “guaranteed” value of comics increasing over time. Thus there were gimmicky covers, multiple covers of the same issue (buy them all to have a complete collection!), price hikes, gratuitous cameos of “hot” characters and crossover storylines intended to dive sales of shitty books. That, coupled with the decision of Marvel Comics to distribute their own stuff exclusively, meant that Joe Retailer no longer enjoyed the big wholesale discount he got from buying all his Marvel and everything else from a third-party distributor. DC soon followed suit and became exclusive to one distributor, so now Joe Retailer had to order from more places, which means he ordered less from each, which means he paid more overall. To make matters worse, eventually the collectors stopped buying into the crap, and a lot of comic shops went out of business when they couldn’t move the merchandise they ordered two months previously in anticipation of collector demand that was suddenly no longer there.

Shortly before the big crash, though, Marvel started advertising something called “Marvel Mart” in their comics, which was a way for the individual collector to order from Marvel directly. As I recall, it was packaged in a way that implied the comic shop was an unreliable way to get your comics on time and in good condition. Plus, if you ordered directly, you saved money, since it was cheaper than Joe Retailer. Well, comic store owners went ballistic, since it seemed that Marvel was trying to drive them out of business. If I remember correctly, Marvel relented and Marvel Mart went away, mainly because Marvel didn’t expect the backlash from retailers. After all, Marvel comics accounted for something like 70% of comic sales at the time. Take that away, and how can an owner survive? Most didn’t. The store I worked at survived for a time on Magic: the Gathering card sales. Then it went out of business, too.

Much as I love playing other games, for most people GW is synonymous with miniatures gaming, for better or worse.  I have to think that this will hit the wall at some point, but that wall just keeps getting pushed back.

I didn’t buy anything yesterday after all, although I am considering the older Empire Battalion and/or maybe the Tau, if I can find the older codex. I still have two WFB armies I’m working on (which means I haven’t made much progress). I just feel bad for this store owner and others like him, who are really struggling and fighting an uphill battle. To be fair, it’s not just GW’s fault; they just have the worst prices. Amazon sells X-Wing stuff for a lot less than retail, for example. It wasn’t too long ago I considered opening a store of my own. With the current state of the market, I’d be rolling some heavily-loaded dice if I did. I just think it’s sad that the little guy might not be around too much longer.

 

 

My Pile of Insanity

Like most miniatures enthusiasts, I have an ever-increasing mountain of unpainted lead and plastic that might one day get me my own episode of Hoarders.

Well, I will not go gentle into that good night, friends. I’m doing something about it. They say the first step is to admit you have a problem. Well, I submit to you my pile of insanity. Judge not lest ye be judged. I know some of you are worse.

First up: my desk. Thousands of miniatures have been painted and, in some cases, repainted here. Considering 90% of the painting I do nowadays is for the AD&D campaign I’m running, I have to be careful about what I show so as not to give my players any warning of what’s coming. In front of the paint rack is a group of miniatures, most of which are primed black. Some have been in this state for YEARS. The current project is a group of 10 Wargames Factory Zombie Vixens. Once these are done I have 20 more to paint. You may notice the backscratcher on the right. Highly recommended for those of us who spend hours painting hunched over.

This rack contains leftover bits on sprues,  Plano cases full of painted miniatures (don’t count), old boxed sets of Grenadier and Ral Partha miniatures (one day I’ll get around to repainting them), basing materials and supplies, etc. All the white card boxes are full of Heroclix miniatures, sorted by team. There are some hidden gems here, too. For example, I have about 40 Rogue Trader Beakie Space Marines, still on the sprue. I’m saving them for a rainy day.

Here is one side of my closet. The miniatures are on the second shelf, all unpainted: boxed sets of Wyrd, Confrontation, Alkemy and Privateer Press stuff; an unopened High Elf Battle Ready Battalion; an unopened WFB Battle of Skull Pass; several unopened regiments of High Elves, including a Cavalry Patrol; my Cawdor Necromunda Gang; some Warzone stuff I bought just because I liked it; a box of Defiance UAMC Marines; a box of Wargames Factory Shock Troopers (soon to be joined by 2 more boxes en route); a Reaper Dwarf Cannon; some Mantic Dwarfs, a box of Judge Dredd Gangers I bought at Gen Con for 5 bucks; and a Clan War Crab Regiment to go with the Clan War base set I haven’t painted. It’s over by the Space Hulk game that has all unpainted miniatures in it, too.

Below that are three shelves full of mostly unpainted scenery. Yes, that’s an original Warhammer Mighty Fortress. I’ve never used it, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. Three boxes of Pegasus Gothic buildings and ruins share the same shelf, along with a GW Chapel. (All those tackle boxes and miniatures cases have painted WFB and 40K armies in them, so they don’t count towards the pile of insanity.)

Here’s the other side of my closet, just for the hell of it. No miniatures here, just RPGs and card binders.

You could dive into this and never come up.

And lastly, here’s the box o’blisters. Way too much stuff to list here individually, but Reaper, Hasslefree, Pulp Figures, Armorcast, Warhammer FB, Privateer Press, Confrontation, Moonlight Miniatures, East Riding Miniatures, Wyrd, Killer B, Bronze Age, Rattrap and plenty of nameless and/or forgotten miniatures companies have at least one and most likely more than one blister in here.

If I was so inclined, I could count all the unpainted miniatures I have to paint. But I’m not so inclined.

After a recent barrage of orders, I decided I need to do something about this. I can’t keep buying stuff and not painting it. That’s craziness. So I’m doing what others in this hobby of ours have done. I’m making a plan.

Ten miniatures a week. If I can do ten miniatures a week and stop buying more than ten miniatures a week, I should make some headway, right?  Although the miniatures I paint are to some degree influenced by my needs for the AD&D campaign, that game is on a brief hiatus. So I can use the opportunity to blow through some lead. First step: start with the shit on my desk.

Over the last 2 weeks, I’ve painted 20 miniatures. I’ve bought about 50. So I’m starting over. Monday-Monday…10 miniatures, no new purchases.

Starting now.

Thinking of Opening a FLGS

There used to be a Friendly Local Game Store in my area up until about 10 years ago. Now the closest one is 40 miles away.

The owner was a gamer who decided it would be cool to own a store. For a long time there was a dedicated group of gamers that met there often to play and patronize the store. Warhammer and 40K were the only miniatures games played in the store, and it only stocked GW games and miniatures. Privateer Press was in in its infancy, so no one was playing that yet, and Flames of War was the new kid on the block. There was a lot of CCG gaming too, mostly Magic and Pokemon (For the kids. Mostly. Don’t ask…there were some creepy people there.)

It seemed to do well, but the place had its problems. Like the fact that the owner had no use for his regular customers once they had bought their armies and weren’t interested in buying more. And like the owner’s wife.  Whenever she was around she was a rather vocal and annoying presence in the store, and she loathed gaming and gamers and didn’t mind letting us all know it. Plus, she tried (unsuccessfully) to insert herself and her own choice of products into the workings of the store…for example, she famously insisted her husband carry the Thomas the Tank Engine line of wooden train sets for toddlers. (When the store closed, I’m pretty sure they still had every Thomas toy they ever stocked, and they had the whiole line. That stuff wasn’t cheap.) It was poor decisions like this (and like her habit of changing her toddler on the gaming tables) that ultimately led to people deciding not to play in the store as often. I don’t know why the owner eventually closed up shop, as he seemed to still be doing a decent business when he did (and he was a millionaire through inheritance, besides) but I suspect it was more his wife’s decision than his own. Time for him to “grow up” and all that.

So for about ten years there’s been nowhere central to play in my area. Most of the regulars splintered off into little groups, and I have no idea where they play now or even if they still do. All my friends who played miniatures games from that time are now scattered, and I’m pretty much left with a bunch of WFB and W40K armies and miniatures that never get used. So now I’m considering opening my own game store.

A bit about me: I am unmarried and have no children, so I don’t have a family to support. I own my own business and I would be able to continue operating it while running the store on the side. I am not rich by any means, but I am fortunate enough that I don’t have any problem paying my bills. In short, if I were to open a store, I would not have to rely on it to make a living. In fact, I would not have to draw a paycheck from it at all for as long as necessary.

From what I gather just from browsing the forums, this is probably a good thing; as no one seems to be getting rich owning a game store nowadays (if they ever did).

But my reasons for opening a game store are mostly selfish, and making money isn’t really one of them. Of course, no one goes into business looking to lose money, and if I was hemorrhaging cash every month I would probably close up shop fast. But I could live with a store doing a little better than breaking even, if all my goals were met.

That being said, here are my reasons:

  1. I would like to raise awareness of the hobby and promote smaller-press games and miniatures. I would like to introduce people to great game systems like Kings of War, Rattrap’s .45 Adventure, Hydra’s War Rocket, It Came from Beyond the Still, and the Two Hour Wargames stuff. Promoting these kinds of games would show people there’s an alternative to GW and that it’s possible to have a good time with miniatures that don’t have to cost an arm and a leg. (Of course, I would carry and promote GW stuff too, seeing how they’re the biggest company around and most people in the hobby play their games. Even though I don’t like their business model or their practices, ignoring them would ensure my store fails before it ever gets on its feet.)
  2. It would be nice to attract some fellow gamers. Currently I play RPGs with some close friends, but none of them are very big into miniatures games. When we get together, which is infrequently, it’s pretty much solely to play RPGs. I’ve tried to get them interested in some skirmish level games, something that doesn’t necessitate a huge layout of cash and/or time (like 40K), and I’ve had some modest success. But the simple truth is that if I want to play miniatures games (and I do), then the burden of buying and painting miniatures and buying, painting and constructing scenery lies with me and me alone. It would be nice to have other gamers who really love the hobby help out with that.
  3. I’d like to have a great place to play. Although I’m in the process of setting up a pretty cool gaming room in my home, at the end of the day, if my friends don’t come over, I don’t play. And I’m pretty selective about who I invite to my home. I’d rather play games elsewhere with people I don’t know all that well.

So it looks to me that my reasons for opening a game store can be summed up as follows: I want to open a game store as an extension of my hobby, so that I can play more games more often. Not exactly a great business model, right?

My strategy to stay in business would be to stock merchandise from games that people play already (like Warhammer, War Machine, Heroclix and Magic: the Gathering), and slowly bring in other stuff that people may not know about (like A Call to Arms: Star Fleet, War Rocket and All Things Zombie). I’d like to carry Reaper’s stuff, including their paints; and Mantic’s games in order to give people an alternative or supplement to GW’s stuff. I’d carry as much Fantasy Flight stuff as I could, and I’d promote everything with in-store demos, workshops, game nights and tournaments. I would want the store to always have something going on, whether it’s a board game, miniatures game, card game or rpg.

The obstacles to my success, as seen by me, include:

  1. The economy. Like it or not, our hobby is a luxury. No one needs to spend money on this stuff, and with the economy in the shitter, fewer people are able to.  The price hike on metal isn’t helping anyone, really; and even plastic and resin miniatures are pricey nowadays. And that’s not even considering the biggest pig at the trough, GW, whose annual price increases certainly don’t help retailers to sell more of their stuff, and actually puts them in the role of “GW apologist” far too often. But again, ignoring GW isn’t an option, and they’re not about to change, so you’re screwed either way, it seems.
  2. My competition isn’t the FLGS 40 miles away. It’s Amazon.com and Internet discounters. Who wants to pay $50 for the latest Pathfinder Core Ruleset from my store when they can get it on Amazon for $20? Not many people. Sure, supporting the little guy is a noble ideal, but the truth is a lot of us, myself included, shop at Wal-Mart even though we know it’s bad for the economy. Because $25 DVD players are tough to say no to, as are $5 DVDs. I know I won’t be able to match any Internet discount, and I know eBay is a good source for secondary market miniatures (especially GW stuff).  So just getting people to buy stuff from me as opposed to getting it  cheaper someplace else will be an ongoing challenge.
  3. All the financing for this business venture is probably coming from me. I don’t anticipate selling a bank on financing a business of this nature. Perhaps some of you can tell me if they encountered any problems with getting a business loan based on the fact that you’re opening a store that sells (often overpriced) toy soldiers. And how much money do you need to start things up?

I am now at the stage where I will be talking to business consultants about how best to proceed should I decide to take the plunge. I would greatly appreciate the input of brick and mortar game store owners and people in the business. Please offer your opinions and let me know what I haven’t considered, what I have been woefully naive about, etc. Feel free to comment on this blog or email me at angrypiper@angrypiper.com.