Gaming vs collecting.

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Trevor

Brushlicker and Freak!
THIS image sparked a realisation in me that GW are being increasingly left behind in terms of their minis. I\'m sure this is nothing new to many of you but I think I have put my finger on why.

Years ago GW minis were the best (IMHO), they were very hard to beat. In the last few years many mini companies large and small have appeared and intorduced competition, this alone has raised the bar.

However, I think the biggest reason why GW are no longer the best is because of where they have taken their minis, especially for warhammer - massed battles. Their minis are primarily about gaming. This leads to certain design decisions that have ended up with the plastic regiment sets. Don\'t get me wrong, I think these are great and they keep trying to improve them (the new wood elf ones are sweet as), but this results in \"unit minis\" rather than individuals.

Anyway, it just occured to me that I have become increasingly interested in single mins rather than armies and this is driving my move away from GW.
 
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Wolf_Fang

Guest
i agree completely... another thing is they dont give enough peices to do certain things IE extended carapace on all warriors...... also i feel they could make the gaunts a little better (more like the warriors so you can very the poses a little more) altho being in my current position im not going to complain.. i have 2 comapanies to choose from.. GW and reaper... and even then i cant get just enything from reaper due to contract isues... so.... il\'l use whispered words of whisdom and let it be ;)
 
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Ogrebane

Active member
At the moment I\'m interested in armies but the more I see other minis on CMON the more interest I have in actually painting a single mini just for the sake of painting a mini (as opposed to adding to my army).
And as you\'ve said I would pick just about any other manufacturer to do that. But GW is profit based look at how many times they update the codexs just to sell new minis.
 
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EricJ

Active member
I bet there is far more money in gaming compaired to us painters.

When people buy an army it\'s 100 minis, plus they need a friend to buy another 100...and then there are 2nd and 3rd armies, etc...

even the most prolific painters can\'t get close to this.
 
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Naukhel

Active member
Well, some of the companies are making their games less unit based. And as I understand it, a \'named unit\' has more specific and unique statistics.

But who are we? We\'re the gamers and painters.....

Why don\'t we design our own game that deals with individuals more, to reflect the artistic effort that goes into each painted mini?
 
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paintingploddy

New member
I started off as a wannabe gamer, and my collection shows that. The number of armies in different scales and systems rates at about two to three for every year of painting. In reality I\'m a collector. I usually only paint two or three of each army/unit before moving on to another figure. I doubt I\'ll paint an army ever, and my purchases of GW have slowed to a halt.
 
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Drake Farstrider

New member
I mainly buy a mini because I like it and want to paint it. I will of course buy a mini from time to time for my Role-playing game but that is not all that often.

The Real question is where can I buy that mini? ??? To say incredible would not be doing it justice.:wow:
 
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Ritual

New member
@Drake
That mini is from Ilyad games so it\'ll be tricky to get in the States. I don\'t know if there are any American distributors. Try asking some of the French forum members to get it for you.
 
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Trevor

Brushlicker and Freak!
@ Painting Ploddy

Thats exactly what I\'m like. In twenty years I have finished a Emperor scythes Marine army, a small space wolf army, a small eldar army, an orc and goblin army, a small wood elf army, an ork army for epic, a high elf fleet for Man O War, a Necromunda gang and a Ork fleet for BFG.

Given that some of those are little more than units thats about 1 army every 3 years. However, I\'ve lost track of how many unpainted armies I have, probably 5 for every painted one.

I think it began to filter into my mind that I was buying all this stuff and not doing anything with it, I do have something of a Kleptomaniac personality, I\'m loathe to get rid of any of them, but I\'m not really too interested in having unpainted minis, I want painted. I also dislike doing my armies to tabletop standard, I want them at 7-8 standard :p Problem is, I\'m sooooo slllooooow, I\'ll never finish. I\'m also burned badly by changes in the line, much of the stuff I thought was cool 10 years ago, sucks by todays standards, so the lead piles up and nothing gets painted as I move onto the next thing.

Given all this and seeing as I pretty much never game anymore I\'m leaning towards doing single minis more and maybe small units and armies, it also removes any incentive to stick to GW (other than for GD).

Interestingly, I have been desperate to do the new marines, tyrannids and wood elves since they came out, yet I\'ve only bought a few marines, in the same time I have bought reaper, and rackham and dark ages and war machine and even painted some of them ;) Looks like the sensible side of my brain is winning through :)
 
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paintingploddy

New member
Skirmish games seem to be the answer for me. A handful of figures can be done before some new bright shiny object gets my interest. I blame TV for my short attention span.
 
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Legacy Account

Active member
Originally posted by Drake Farstrider
Argggghhh does anyone want to get me that mini. I will pay! PM me! I don\'t know of anyone here that sells them?
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Get them here, although that one may not be out yet:


Gamers Quest

As for the quality issue, GW\'s had definitely gone downhill. They seem to have one or two YTS sculptors who are learning as they go - not good for the consumer really.

Other companies have the right idea - employ the best for the job! GW seem to enjoy letting talent slip through their fingers.
 
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Herb the bitter

New member
Originally posted by Trevor

Given all this and seeing as I pretty much never game anymore I\'m leaning towards doing single minis more and maybe small units and armies, it also removes any incentive to stick to GW (other than for GD).
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I think this describes me too. Without gaming there aren\'t a lot of GW minis to go out of my way for.

I have a lot of chaos(beastman) plastics, but the thought of putting all those plastics together, removing sprue and mold lines, then having to green stuff the shoulder joints, and then finally painting them to a \'high standard\'(I use the term loosely) really puts me off. I think what is more likely to happen is 10 years from now my boys will be putting them together and painting them. That may be the next time I game too :)

Been buying mostly Rackham lately. Good God I\'m a slow painter.

The thing I like about Reaper is they don\'t have a game universe to conform to(at least the dark heaven line), so they can make any mini they want no matter how odd(for example the wereshark, not that I liked it).
 
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supervike

Super Moderator
I\'ve a thought!!

Originally posted by Herb the bitter
Been buying mostly Rackham lately. Good God I\'m a slow painter.
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I\'m slow too, so lets make a pact, that we can\'t buy any more minis until we paint at least 20 of the ones we have.....:rolleyes:


Am I a \'gamer want-a-be\' I am also a \'painter want-a-be\'....So I get the best of both worlds....

Actually, I think GW has done a great job of catering to both the gamer and the painter. Each army that comes out has the \'bulk\' troops (catering to the gamers) and of course the command or special units (which many painters love). Timing and market appeal seem to determine how many and how intricate each of those items are.

BUT, as a great side effect of this, GW has unwittingly created the market for other companies to fill the void some people may feel. GW has become the meat and potatoes, while several companies have now set themselves up as fine dining.

Regardless of many anti-GW sentiments, I think we have to acknowledge them as ushering in the \'golden age\' of miniatures.

Consumers have a wide variety of products at all kinds of pricing and skill levels.
 
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vincegamer

Active member
Originally posted by supervike
I\'m slow too, so lets make a pact, that we can\'t buy any more minis until we paint at least 20 of the ones we have.....:rolleyes:
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I made the vow not to buy any more minis until I painted all the ones I have.

Since then I\'ve probably acquired a few hundred minis and have painted maybe a dozen or so.
 
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Herb the bitter

New member
Originally posted by supervike

I\'m slow too, so lets make a pact, that we can\'t buy any more minis until we paint at least 20 of the ones we have.....:rolleyes:
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Only 20? :D With a third kid in daycare next year, I won\'t be able to buy any minis anyway, so maybe I should take the vow:( Maybe it would give me a false sense that I was merely choosing not to buy any minis.

The bible says \"man can not live on bread alone\". What about Ramen noodles and minis?
 
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praetorian0_1

Guest
We\'re lucky in our town in some ways. There is a LGS that has tons of used junk so that you can get yourself an army for dirt cheap like ebay without the shipping. My friend and I always go there for their 50% off sales they have twice a year- got a whole chaos army for like $100 that way.That\'s how I get my guys. I am grateful for them being out of the sprues and packs already- less clutter for my boots to trip over.
Just watch ebay though you can still make a killing.
I agree about the quality- they are always about 5yrs behind. However it seems like a trend to be cutting corners and maxing out profits lately-sorry fanboys. They know their place is with the mass models though for sure.
 
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Evil Dave

New member
Originally posted by paintingploddy
Skirmish games seem to be the answer for me. A handful of figures can be done before some new bright shiny object gets my interest.
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That\'s why Necromunda rocked.
I had the largest gang in our gaming group and it was only 12 minis.
 
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