I don't get how people could possibly confuse this

with this

a very FFG feel to it that not everyone likes. The special movement tool, the special dice, the 'top heavy' approach to the rules...

I saw an interview with some FFG people once where they were saying that (unlike GW) they did market research and discovered that the custom dice and special templates and such are actually far more popular than Tahoe measures and regular dice with tables. People like having everything needed to play included.

Sure, but they aren't marketing to the wargamer crowd. They're marketing to the board gaming/card gaming crowd.

EDIT: I would also say that while custom dice and tape measures are popular, the GENERIC custom dice and tape measures are the most popular. Like D6s with Rebel logos for the sixes, or a tapemeasure shaped like Vaders helemt, as opposed to the funky symbol dice that FFG use.

a very FFG feel to it that not everyone likes. The special movement tool, the special dice, the 'top heavy' approach to the rules...

I saw an interview with some FFG people once where they were saying that (unlike GW) they did market research and discovered that the custom dice and special templates and such are actually far more popular than Tahoe measures and regular dice with tables. People like having everything needed to play included.

Sure, but they aren't marketing to the wargamer crowd. They're marketing to the board gaming/card gaming crowd.

More like they're marketing to a crowd that wanted wargaming more accessible.

a very FFG feel to it that not everyone likes. The special movement tool, the special dice, the 'top heavy' approach to the rules...

I saw an interview with some FFG people once where they were saying that (unlike GW) they did market research and discovered that the custom dice and special templates and such are actually far more popular than Tahoe measures and regular dice with tables. People like having everything needed to play included.

Sure, but they aren't marketing to the wargamer crowd. They're marketing to the board gaming/card gaming crowd.

More like they're marketing to a crowd that wanted wargaming more accessible.

Nah, special dice and movement tools makes a game LESS accessible. I can get D6s from anywhere, and tape-measures are like $2 at the hardware store. X Wing templates or Armada maneuver tools, and the relevant dice are much harder to source.

FFG markets to a crowd of people who aren't interested in the traditional wargaming staples: Making terrain, assembling, painting and converting models, games where 90 to 120 minutes is the 'standard' play time, etc. They market to a crowd of people who want everything to come in the box, with no extra effort required, where all the input from the player is in the list building and playing of the game.

And I'm not passing judgement here, I don't think one way or the other is a better way to play games. I happen to prefer a more traditional wargaming approach, but I have no problem with people who aren't interested in that. But it's important to note that FFG are NOT marketing towards people who want to play Wargames. They are marketing to people who like board games and card games, who might want to give a miniatures game a go.

There's a significant gap between people who play card/board games and people who play wargames. And X Wing and to a lesser extent Armada cater to the former crowd rather than the latter. To cater to a wargaming crowd, FFG would be selling unpainted and unassembled kits, have rulebooks instead of cards, actively encourage a range of points sizes and scenarios, use regular D6s and tapemeasures, while selling their own custom D6s and tapemeasures as well, etc. In terms of population demographics we're almost identical, but I don't know many people who play Magic AND wargames. And on the forums at least, there are a LOT of people who've never played a wargame and have no intention of doing so.

Sure, but they aren't marketing to the wargamer crowd.

Then why do the keep making Star Wars wargames?

Dice with your faction symbols are nice, but they don't improve game play the way custom dice do. (Plus, everyone us doing them wrong now, putting the symbol on the "6" side, instead of the "1" side where it belongs ;P )

More like they're marketing to a crowd that wanted wargaming more accessible.

Nah, special dice and movement tools makes a game LESS accessible. I can get D6s from anywhere, and tape-measures are like $2 at the hardware store. X Wing templates or Armada maneuver tools, and the relevant dice are much harder to source.

FFG markets to a crowd of people who aren't interested in the traditional wargaming staples: Making terrain, assembling, painting and converting models, games where 90 to 120 minutes is the 'standard' play time, etc. They market to a crowd of people who want everything to come in the box, with no extra effort required, where all the input from the player is in the list building and playing of the game.

I think you're both saying the same thing here.

FFG markets to a crowd of people who aren't interested in the traditional wargaming staples: Making terrain, assembling, painting and converting models, games where 90 to 120 minutes is the 'standard' play time, etc.

The only reason those things are "wargaming staples" is because for 30 years basically the only significant wargaming company was GW, who have made a career out of not do market research and finding our what customers actually want out of their product.

Sure, there are a few wargamers who only buy figs for the modelling (they are really modellers, not wargamers) but in 30 years of active gaming I have never met one. Everyone I have ever met who buys wargame figures does do to play the games. I have, however, met dozens and dozens of people who have said that they WANT to play wargames, but the barrier of entry is too high because you have to invest so much time assembling and painting the models first. To say nothing of the decades long running joke about how many armies in wargames have a "plastic grey" color scheme.

Those "staples" are things most wargamers put up with because they haven't had any other choice until recently. Remember, part of the reason X-Wing has had such phenomenal success is because of all the Warhammer players that have jumped ship to FFG's wargames recently.

Sure, but they aren't marketing to the wargamer crowd.

Then why do the keep making Star Wars wargames?

Dice with your faction symbols are nice, but they don't improve game play the way custom dice do. (Plus, everyone us doing them wrong now, putting the symbol on the "6" side, instead of the "1" side where it belongs ;P )

I'd argue they haven't made a Star Wars wargame yet!

Well, maybe Armada if I'm feeling generous.

Custom dice is obviously a subjective opinion, but IMO they are a detriment to game play due to the lack of graduations. You have six individual results on a D6, but only 3 on an X Wing dice.

FFG markets to a crowd of people who aren't interested in the traditional wargaming staples: Making terrain, assembling, painting and converting models, games where 90 to 120 minutes is the 'standard' play time, etc.

The only reason those things are "wargaming staples" is because for 30 years basically the only significant wargaming company was GW, who have made a career out of not do market research and finding our what customers actually want out of their product.

Sure, there are a few wargamers who only buy figs for the modelling (they are really modellers, not wargamers) but in 30 years of active gaming I have never met one. Everyone I have ever met who buys wargame figures does do to play the games. I have, however, met dozens and dozens of people who have said that they WANT to play wargames, but the barrier of entry is too high because you have to invest so much time assembling and painting the models first. To say nothing of the decades long running joke about how many armies in wargames have a "plastic grey" color scheme.

Those "staples" are things most wargamers put up with because they haven't had any other choice until recently. Remember, part of the reason X-Wing has had such phenomenal success is because of all the Warhammer players that have jumped ship to FFG's wargames recently.

This ignores the large and successful range of 'skirmish' wargames like Saga, Dux Brit/Dux Bel, Frostgrave etc. And also I don't think it pays enough credit to the enormous chunks of the gaming community who love painting and converting their armies. For most, it's not a necessary chore but an enjoyable part of the hobby.

Four. Four Results on an X-Wing Red Die.

Three on a Green Die, Yes....

But also 5 Differing Results on an Armada Red Die....

But even then, the spread of the results cannot be replicated on a mere 6 faces.

Four. Four Results on an X-Wing Red Die.

Three on a Green Die, Yes....

But also 5 Differing Results on an Armada Red Die....

But even then, the spread of the results cannot be replicated on a mere 6 faces.

But there's a lot more scope for modification with a D6 (or D8 if that's your thing). Custom dice are, (imo of course) strictly inferior to a D6.

I feel X-wing is getting a bit too close to the 40k way of playing though. For example using the newest hotness, using only what wins, Spamming crazy (contracted scouts,cough). The new Imp Vets coming out soon. We are going to see Defender after Defender list in the near future. I feel the Balance is shifting a bit and it worries me.

This ignores the large and successful range of 'skirmish' wargames like Saga, Dux Brit/Dux Bel, Frostgrave etc.

Successful in that they have a small, stable player base maybe. But frost grave is reletively new (only about a year old), Saga is sufficiently niche that I only just found out a few months ago that there was a wargame as well as an old RPG system by that name, no idea how old it is. And that third one I've never even heard of. Virtually no stores carry any of those. They are a niche of a niche of a niche.

And again, all this modern crop of "traditional" wargames do it the way they do because that's how it's always been done. First because the technology and infra structure didn't allow for more customized components at an affordable price, and then later because the giant in the room, GW, refused to consider the possibility that people might want something else.

And also I don't think it pays enough credit to the enormous chunks of the gaming community who love painting and converting their armies. For most, it's not a necessary chore but an enjoyable part of the hobby.

So where are these enormous chunks? Why are most armies unpainted, and even the ones that are painted usually have their owners complaining about the time needed to do it? GW has been branding themselves as a boutique model company, with games as an afterthought, that caters to the modeler and hobbiest for years now, and their sales have been plummeting as a result.

Sure, there ARE hobbiests who are mostly in it for the painting. And there are certainly some who gain equal enjoyment from both the modeling and the game play. But anecdotal evidence over the years suggest that they are quite the minority, and it can't be argued that the modelling aspects of wargaming have kept large swathes of potential customers out of the hobby.

Four. Four Results on an X-Wing Red Die.

Three on a Green Die, Yes....

But also 5 Differing Results on an Armada Red Die....

But even then, the spread of the results cannot be replicated on a mere 6 faces.

But there's a lot more scope for modification with a D6 (or D8 if that's your thing). Custom dice are, (imo of course) strictly inferior to a D6.

Well, you can't factor D8s into it... As for all intents and purposes, X-Wing Dice are D8s with a Table of Results.... No different there...

SO really, all you can argue is the difference between a D8 and a D6

A D6 is readily available in bulk, yes. But a D8 inherently allows a different spread of results. D8s, when you are intending on reading just the dice without modifiers +/-, gives that.

Of course, having a table of modifiers does increase the spread of a D6, but it also slows the game down. Because you have to reference a table for every dice roll (until you have all tables memorised).

Custom dice are just that - Easy to Quickly get results from.

And also I don't think it pays enough credit to the enormous chunks of the gaming community who love painting and converting their armies. For most, it's not a necessary chore but an enjoyable part of the hobby.

So where are these enormous chunks?

\

Ironically, despite my arguments in this thread... I am one of them... I mean, I built a business out of it, after all

... And I'm Not Fat... I ts Glandular, I swear... :D

I'm in Shape... Round is a shape....

I still the T-65 sits on shelves crying itself to sleep, except in the hands of those who love to field it anyway.

... and the guys like us that are smart enough to know to stay away from Ace-Wing where most ships are reduced to being macho-meanies and thrill killers.

So guys who play macho meanies are dumb?

Just take a second and let that sink in there Joe.

X-wing's dice are essentially just d8s. In fact you could include a table or two and play the exact same game with regular d8s. But that table or two slows the game down slightly and is off putting to most. Game design, even when using regular numbered dice, has for years tried to minimize or eliminate tables in their rules. FFG is simply following that progression to its next step, instead of including a table of results that is cross referenced with the number rolled, just put the results ON the dice.

Now, in their other games, they get a lot more creative with their custom dice. By including multiple symbols on some or all faces of a die, and then varying the proportions of those symbols on different dice, it gives them ENORMOUS flexibility in the types of results they can achieve. In Imperial Assault, with just 2 dice, no modifiers, no special rules, no complex calculations, nothing but 2 dice they can produce a melee attack with huge damage potential, a weak but very long ranged attack, an attack that does minimal damage but can trigger assorted special abilities (what those abilities DO require rules, of course), or anything in between those extremes. All with just 2 dice and nothing else. And that is before you start varying the number of dice being used. I've been trying for a year to come up with a way to easily achieve a similar breadth of results without using custom dice and I can't think of a practical way to do it. Closest I've seen is Malefaux which uses cards instead of dice and can achieve a similar (though more limited) effect by treating number and suit as different results, just like FFG dice.

I still the T-65 sits on shelves crying itself to sleep, except in the hands of those who love to field it anyway.

... and the guys like us that are smart enough to know to stay away from Ace-Wing where most ships are reduced to being macho-meanies and thrill killers.

So guys who play macho meanies are dumb?

YES!!!

Just take a second and let that sink in there Joe.

Hey how about you go think about your own postings here of late.

So where are these enormous chunks? Why are most armies unpainted

Well hold on, if you're going to insist that most armies are unpainted (and we're not just talking about 40K, or armies that are temporarily unpainted, but armies that remain unpainted in the larger wargaming community for a protracted period of time) then you'd better start by backing it up. In my experience the vast majority of wargamers enjoy painting and enjoy putting together models and converting them so that their force, and sometimes every model in it, is entirely unique to them. One needs only look at the volume of painting blogs on a site like dakka-dakka to see the popularity. There are nearly twice as many posts in the painting and modelling section of dakkadakka alone , than there are on the entire X Wing forum. Don't forget to factor in sites like Lead Adventure, Warseer, WWPD, TMP etc. Heaps and heaps and heaps of people actually enjoy modelling and painting.

Sure, there ARE hobbiests who are mostly in it for the painting. And there are certainly some who gain equal enjoyment from both the modeling and the game play. But anecdotal evidence over the years suggest that they are quite the minority, and it can't be argued that the modelling aspects of wargaming have kept large swathes of potential customers out of the hobby.

In my experience most gamers enjoy sitting down and getting in a good painting session. Even for X Wing there is a dedicated group of people who enjoy painting their ships. Having to build and paint toy soldiers is part of the attraction of wargaming, and people who are put off by it... well, that hobby isn't really FOR them, is it? It's like loving the idea of snowboarding, but hating the snow, or loving golf but hating swinging clubs and hitting golf balls. If you don't like a key component of the hobby, then the hobby probably isn't for you. Hence the rise of these in-between games like X Wing and Imperial Assault.

But if a company like Gripping Beast or Wargames Foundry decided to stop producing metal or multi-part plastics, and instead only sold pre-painted pre-assembled models they would go out of business in a heartbeat . The people who are interested in buying those models are NOT the people who want to buy pre-painted models.

Which is sort of what I've been trying to get at this whole time. People who love wargames (usually) also love painting and modelling and making terrain and doing all the other wargame stuff like creating back-story for your models, playing campaigns and scenarios, playing a range of point sizes, etc. People who aren't interested in those things, won't like wargames. But they might still like a miniatures game, and that's where X Wing comes in with no army lists or rule books, no glue or paints involved, no variation in army sizes or scenarios, it's just pure competition, much like a card-game. I'm sure a lot of wargamers will enjoy X Wing but only for a tiny handful of them will it become their favourite game that they play exclusively.

People who aren't interested in those things, won't like wargames.

And the point I'm trying to make is that until recently people who would otherwise enjoy warGAMES have been unable to enter the hobby because there has been this second, additional hobby unavoidably attached to it for more than a generation.

And that is really the issue. Until recently "miniature wargaming" has been viewed as a single hobby when it is actually two (or more) different hobbies that can be, but no longer have to be, connected. The FFG wargames are succeeding so well because they are attractive to traditional wargamers who don't enjoy the modelling aspects (and based on these boards, there seem to be a lot of those) AND they are attracting people who would enjoy miniature wargames, but gave never taken the plunge because of the high time commitment.

I am curious, where are you located? Whenever these sorts of discussions come up I always wonder to what extent the differences are cultural, given how very different the gaming landscape is between England and the USA.

A major issue about Battle Fleet Gothic was that the fleets were widley imbalanced!!!! The Orks for example had very short range guns, and the Eldar had very long range ones...match ups between the two were just flat out unfair to the Ork players.

As for different dice in FFG's games, I absolutely hate it for most of their games since it is a ploy to make money. In Xwing its not as bad (especially since is enough- and honestly almost every player has due to having a copy of each core set) but in Descent, Armada, or the rpgs it can be really bad.

In the Rpgs there are also mutiple symbolds that mean different things, more so even than in Xwing and that can be annoying for new players trying to figure out what happened, and can lead to "what did I just roll? Is my character dead?"

On the other hand, while many gamers certainly enjoy painting models in addition to playing (in my local community 90% of the armies in any system are painted, it's extremely rare to see an unpainted army that it's not new), the existence of commission painting services proves that there is also a significant (at least enough to keep these guys going) part of wargamers that would rather pay a premium for painted models than do it themselves.

They tried with Aeronautica Imperialis (atleast forgeworld did). I wouldn't mind seeing a FF version, but I admit that if I had to choose between a wave of Xwing or a 40k skin for the game, I would take the xwing wave.

...

...

Especially if it has the Assault Gunboats we clearly all need in our lives!

In my experience most gamers enjoy sitting down and getting in a good painting session. Even for X Wing there is a dedicated group of people who enjoy painting their ships. Having to build and paint toy soldiers is part of the attraction of wargaming, and people who are put off by it... well, that hobby isn't really FOR them, is it? It's like loving the idea of snowboarding, but hating the snow, or loving golf but hating swinging clubs and hitting golf balls. If you don't like a key component of the hobby, then the hobby probably isn't for you. Hence the rise of these in-between games like X Wing and Imperial Assault.

It's more like liking golf, but hating having to mow the grass and dig the bunkers.

It is only a part of the hobby because of the attitude of a vocal group of players. A quick look on google shows a lot of discussion about not wanting to play against unpainted armies and even getting upset and angry about it.

That means that in order to play a wargame like Warhammer you not only need to invest a lot of money and time to just acquire the models and learn the rules, you also have to invest a lot of time in developing skills as a modeler and painter. That's nice if you don't have a social life, but I've got better things to do with my time. It is the attitude of the players that prohibit people playing with their purchases out of the box.

It's that attitude that makes it an unsuitable hobby for a lot of people.

The way FFG supports their games, not just X-wing but every game I have much faith in them.

They sure do. Some old-doggs like me wanted a 40k'ish version of X-Wing but it should be clear by now that FFG is not going to do that. They do not need to do it either.

IF they did the true ARmada with 40k FLYING CATHEDRALS

that would be a blast.