On 2017-08-18 at 2:34 PM, subtrendy2 said:

Not gonna lie, kind of a disappointing day.

No significant IA news, and an announcement for what is likely to be a competing and shiny new product. Not good at all.

Not just a competing product but one that is destined for failure. They don't understand what made X-Wing successful and they don't understand what made IA successful and they think they can just copy 40k but with Star Wars and be an instant success.

They should have leveraged the IA game. They should have had the figures painted.

To an IA player it looks like they want you to rebuy and repaint everything again and is unappealing, as well as the rules seeming like merely being a subset of IAs.

To an old WotC Star Wars miniature player it looks like an inferior unpainted product.

To an X-Wing player, a lot of which are only playing because they don't have to paint miniatures, it looks like a crappy unprofessional game, you know, kind of like that floundering Rune Wars thing that no one plays.

To a GW player, they're still enjoying the newness of 8th and will see no reason to switch any time soon, and a year likely won't see that change much. And lets be honest, GW has better fluff, it isn't Rebel vs. Imperial, there are tyranids, tau, necrons, space orks, space elves etc.

To a a young Star Wars fan, which should be their primary target, it has nothing to do with the current movies and is some stupid stuff their parents would play.

*facepalm*

My god are you Mr Optimistic...

20 minutes ago, Red Castle said:

My god are you Mr Optimistic...

Actually, I do think that's kind of optimistic. If Legion is going to be competition for IA, I hope it fails.

1 hour ago, Red Castle said:

My god are you Mr Optimistic...

I'm a glass is always full because air kind of realist. It's a crowded market with new product dying on the shelves constantly, including a very similar game by exactly the same company...

I see what they're trying to do, I've seen a whole lot of attempts at exactly what they're doing fail, I know exactly how useful the Star Wars brand is and how good FF's art catalog is at propping up product.

I've also seen the evolution of GW from start to current day and FF is doing their tabletop miniatures worse and repeating a lot of mistakes they should know not to, had they paid any attention.

Even given all these problems they could still be somewhat successful, except they're very adept at pulling defeat from the jaws of victory by having months with no product on the shelf which was the final nail for the clunky and poorly realized Destiny. Had they followed X-Wing's small starter pack and painted the miniatures it would be a lot more inviting of a game and they could have kept it on the shelves, now however I'm sure they're alienating lots of people with the big box, bare miniatures and when the first wave sells out and people that want to play can't, they're not going to stick around for the reprint and the game will set on a downward trajectory from day 1.

The TableTop market is very different from the classic boardgame market. TableTop gamers WANT unpainted, unassembled figures. They want to make conversions and paint them themselves. They want to build terrain and gaming tables. That's a big part of the hobby.

What Games Workshop does wrong on that market are poor rules, bad balancing and no Organized Play Tournaments with prize support.

I'm pretty sure, FFG will do a better job on that front. That's what FFG does best. Therefore I strongly believe, that Legions will go through the roof right from day one.

The quality of the miniatures might not be as good as GW's, but significantly better than IA's or any other boardgame's.

And it's STAR WARS! The best selling IP for any kind of game.

I feel like Legion can't fail. It will have a much bigger player base than IA Skirmish soon. Some players will leave IA to join this larger community.

Local IA communities tend to by quite small. When two members leave for another game, in many places this will be half the community.

I still love IA and I sincerely hope, that I'm wrong.

11 minutes ago, DerBaer said:

The TableTop market is very different from the classic boardgame market. TableTop gamers WANT unpainted, unassembled figures. They want to make conversions and paint them themselves. They want to build terrain and gaming tables. That's a big part of the hobby.

I'm just jumpin in here, not disagreeing, but I wanted to point out that Alex Davies mentions that these figures are very detailed but far less modular than a traditional 40k sprue. The way he described their sprues and the 'click together' models reminded me of the quality you find in the 40k starter boxes. All the figures would snap together and look fantastic but they'd have maybe three poses and far less conversion potential (without hackin' and slashin') that a normal 40k sprue.

This is a good thing to some players and a bad thing to other players probably, but I figured I'd throw that out there.

Does FFG really have much of a foot in the door with the tabletop wargaming market, though? I mean, it's cool that they're trying, but I wouldn't take RuneWars as all that glowing of a resume. I'd say even the GOT tabletop game is more impressive, if that even counts.

another x-wing article today...

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/8/21/bring-on-the-alpha-strike/

and it is not even Friday

16 minutes ago, Ace_of_Spades said:

another x-wing article today...

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/8/21/bring-on-the-alpha-strike/

and it is not even Friday

Are you surprised? I mean, they announced the new wave a Gen Con so we knew the announcement article was coming. I feel like this is the first x-wing wave to get me excited in a while.

2 hours ago, DerBaer said:

The TableTop market is very different from the classic boardgame market. TableTop gamers WANT unpainted, unassembled figures.

No. They don't. YOU might, but YOU are not the majority of table top gamers. X-Wing has probably been their most successful miniatures product and it's painted, beating Rune Wars, Battle Lore, Imperial Assault and all their unpainted lines, probably even including the long running Descent. The majority of players tolerate unpainted miniatures, not look for them.

WotC Star Wars miniatures did well, 20?ish waves well, with painted miniatures. Mage Knight, Battle Tech, Attack Wing, X-Wing, Armada and many other examples have all been more successful than your average unpainted tabletop miniatures game. GW continues to thrive with a product that is in many ways outdated and inferior for the same reason Magic continues to thrive with outdated mechanics, momentum. People that want a game are the VAST majority, and people that want to piss away thousands of dollars and hours on a hobby that is also a game are quite a small minority. X-Wing's painted miniatures captured a lot of people that would otherwise have said screw it and just played video games. A lot of those people will take one look at unpainted Legion and say screw it and pay $60 for Battlefront 2 instead of dropping $90 for a bunch of colorless lumps of plastic.

4 minutes ago, Union said:

No. They don't. YOU might, but YOU are not the majority of table top gamers. X-Wing has probably been their most successful miniatures product and it's painted, beating Rune Wars, Battle Lore, Imperial Assault and all their unpainted lines, probably even including the long running Descent. The majority of players tolerate unpainted miniatures, not look for them.

WotC Star Wars miniatures did well, 20?ish waves well, with painted miniatures. Mage Knight, Battle Tech, Attack Wing, X-Wing, Armada and many other examples have all been more successful than your average unpainted tabletop miniatures game. GW continues to thrive with a product that is in many ways outdated and inferior for the same reason Magic continues to thrive with outdated mechanics, momentum. People that want a game are the VAST majority, and people that want to piss away thousands of dollars and hours on a hobby that is also a game are quite a small minority.

It would be interesting to see a poll of how people view this.

A year ago, I would've wanted painted minis. Now, I'm glad I got to pain them on my own. I think Mage Knight is an interesting example, because while the minis are painted, the paint job is pretty subpar. Like, I'm no pro, but even I could have done substantially better than that. I'd rather have unpainted minis than poorly painted minis.

I would take poorly painted miniatures over unpainted ones. Just because I have way to many figures to paint between all the games that we have.

This is an interesting question. As a new player, I was able to buy the core set online for $80. That price tag really made me think about it, as I thought - $80 for a board game seems really steep. More importantly, my wife thought $80 for a boardgame is REALLY steep!! However, once I made the plunge and started playing I really fell in love with it and realized that this is a great value for my money (comparing it to purchasing an Xbox game or two).

To the original question, if the Core set was available painted for say $160 to $200 (I'm guessing at the price increase?) - I probably would have passed and never got to experience IA. Of course knowing now how much I have enjoyed and played the game - I would totally buy a painted Core set for $200.

Unfortunately I don't have time, space or artistic ability to paint my figures.

13 hours ago, Union said:

No. They don't. YOU might, but YOU are not the majority of table top gamers.

Actually, I don't. I like prepainted plastic.

But I know a LOT of classic TableToppers, playing Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer 40K, Warmachine/Hordes, Infinity, Shadow War, Classic BattleTech, etc.

These are not the same guys that are playing X-Wing, Mage Knight, etc.

13 hours ago, Union said:

X-Wing's painted miniatures captured a lot of people that would otherwise have said screw it and just played video games. A lot of those people will take one look at unpainted Legion and say screw it and pay $60 for Battlefront 2 instead of dropping $90 for a bunch of colorless lumps of plastic.

I absolutely agree.

But I think these players are not the target group for Legion. I strongly believe, that FFG wants to enter a new market with another customer group. Rune Wars Miniatures aims for those classic Warhammer Fantasy/Kings of War/Lord of the Rings-Players. Legion aims for the classic Warhammer 40K/Warmachine/Warpath-Players.

There are these players that you described. These are already customers of FFG, but not for Legion or Rune Wars Mini. Nonetheless they already spend all their money on FFG games. This market might be on it's way to saturation. These players already have to decide, wether they buy IA or Descent. FFG cannibalizes it's own markets here, when making new games for the same target group. But there are pther player, which I called classic Tabletoppers, that are no customers of FFG YET. These players have to decide whether they buy 40K or Legion, Fantasy or Rune Wars. I strongly believe, that FFG wants their money too. And they can get it without cannibalizing their own markets. Legion is the way to get it.

I will say, the one game I wish had come not even prepainted but at least with different colors for the different factions, is War of the Ring. That game is a pain unless you paint the units- I just spraypainted them with their faction color- otherwise, it can be really tough to tell factions apart, and that's kinda a big part of the game.

3 hours ago, DerBaer said:

But I know a LOT of classic TableToppers, playing Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer 40K, Warmachine/Hordes, Infinity, Shadow War, Classic BattleTech, etc.

These are not the same guys that are playing X-Wing, Mage Knight, etc.

I feel like they're also not the same guys playing IA. I know you go on to make that point at the end of your post, but this is sort of jumping off point for what I'm thinking right now.

The audience for Legion overlaps current IA players in two places. Those that want a Star Wars mini game so bad that they're settling for grid movement, small maps, counting spaces etc.; and those who are ready to get into that hobby, for them IA would be the baby steps to get there.

IA has a much more approachable feel to it, and can more readily take on new players. Anyone that moves on from IA to Legion I'm happy for, they get what they want.

Although I have painted minis in the past, I honestly wish they'd come painted already. When I saw the new Legion game, I was excited for about 2 seconds when I saw the unpainted figures. Sure, something like that shouldn't be a deal breaker, but where I loved getting the WotC waves back in the day, I'm already talking myself out of plunging into this new game and the unpainted figures helps with that decision.

(and I really don't want to have to invest in paint and time to make the figures look good when a more generic-looking paint job out of the gate would be just fine). Anyone here ever play Epic Duels? The paint job on those were good enough.

29 minutes ago, Vesper2112 said:

(and I really don't want to have to invest in paint and time to make the figures look good when a more generic-looking paint job out of the gate would be just fine). Anyone here ever play Epic Duels? The paint job on those were good enough.

Epic Duels was my go-to game until I found IA. Unfortunately, my friends who like to play SWED aren't into the more complicated SWIA.

Those paint jobs were decent even if some of the minis were trash (looking at you, Battle Droids).

21 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

It would be interesting to see a poll of how people view this.

A year ago, I would've wanted painted minis. Now, I'm glad I got to pain them on my own. I think Mage Knight is an interesting example, because while the minis are painted, the paint job is pretty subpar. Like, I'm no pro, but even I could have done substantially better than that. I'd rather have unpainted minis than poorly painted minis.

Maybe I'm wrong on this, but if they come painted, is there anything preventing people from priming and repainting themselves? I guess I would assume the answer to that depends on the seal/protective coat used by the original painter.

I would vote for painted. While I've enjoyed being able to personalize my figures and learn/develop a new hobby, I can't even keep up with IA. I only have the figures that I use on a regular basis and a few cannon figures. Otherwise everything is still in the lovely grey/tan plastic.

4 hours ago, wannabepudge said:

Maybe I'm wrong on this, but if they come painted, is there anything preventing people from priming and repainting themselves? I guess I would assume the answer to that depends on the seal/protective coat used by the original painter.

That's kind of how X-Wing works, to my understanding. The minis come painted but the hardcore painters/modders out there can still give their ships new paint jobs if they want.

1 minute ago, ManateeX said:

That's kind of how X-Wing works, to my understanding. The minis come painted but the hardcore painters/modders out there can still give their ships new paint jobs if they want.

Yeah, a buddy of mine painted up an X-Wing in Planet Express ship colors.

There are some pretty sweet custom paint jobs out there.

HotE is available for pre-order! From both coolstuffinc and miniature market!!!

Tomorrow is Friday!

7 minutes ago, DerBaer said:

Tomorrow is Friday!

Arn't we Wednesday or did I overslept?