Quirkworthy

You may not have heard of Prodos Games. If you have, and especially if you backed their Aliens vs Predators game, you may well have strong opinions about them. Now I’ve had a few conversations with them behind the scenes, and am inclined to think that while they’ve made some mistakes, they aren’t quite the monsters some would have them be.

Either way, what I’m interested in here is the other string they have to their bows: as a miniature production facility for hire.

I’ve talked with several companies that have had their miniatures manufactured by Prodos, and they seem to do a pretty good job. Among others, the Age of Tyrants team are using them to do their big little tanks, and the beautiful White Dragon 15mm SF stuff (above) was all cast by Prodos. And that’s gorgeous.

As this helpful graphic explains, miniature production is not an inexpensive undertaking. Prices do vary between companies, but the following gives a reasonable overview of non-metal options. Click the pic for a bigger version.

It’s part of an announcement of a new process that Prodos are calling UniCast, and which is quite exciting – assuming, of course, that it lives up to the hype.

Pretty though.

I thought that the Gears miniature on the left of the following pic was nice and crisp in the detail when I saw it in person, and this photo makes him look a bit ropey compared to the UniCast one. So that’s interesting.

One saving that isn’t explicit from the table is the cost of assembly. Many modern board games use miniatures that are made in more than one part, and which must be assembled before use. Some sell these figures to the customer like this, but if you don’t want to do that you’ve got a choice: compromise the model or pay someone to pre-assemble them. Apparently UniCast is a more flexible process that will allow you to cut the master into fewer parts: allowing nicer single-piece models and reducing assembly costs. For a customer the lower costs mean more toys in the box, or lower cost to start with. For the manufacturer it means more production options and the chance to sell cooler models, thus attracting more sales. For the aspiring game designer/producer, it means that the entry cost is lower and your dream that much easier to attain. For someone that just wants a few models of their own design, this makes plastic a viable option to metal. The minimum order (and reorder) quantities are particularly interesting to aspiring designers.

Of course, the proof of the pudding remains to be seen. But it’s a very interesting development for everyone in the gaming business, whether you make the things or simply play with them 🙂

Been away; back now 🙂

Just returned from a flying visit to Paris for work. Didn’t see much of the city itself, though I did manage to sneak out and meet up with my old friend Leonidas from Ravage. He’s up to all sorts of interesting things these days, having stepped back from the day-to-day running of the magazine. The big thing he’s doing is a new edition of a game called Mythic Battles, and I have to say that it’s looking rather splendid. As the designer Benoit was also there, I persuaded them to give me a quick demo game, and was duly slaughtered by a combination of my overenthusiastic boldness, and Benoit’s far superior skill. As usual, being trounced was an excellent teacher, and I learned some important lessons about the game. It was fun too.

Mythic Battles is an interesting mix of styles of play, fought out with miniatures over a board. And they’re lovely miniatures (have a look at their Facebook page). Leo generously gave me a box of various samples to show you guys, and I’ll be going through that when I’ve unpacked my bag.

You know the classic wargame terrain: corners of ruined walls? Well I always think they look more like wargames terrain than real ruins, which was why I found this clip from Strike Back particularly amusing. Ignore the heroics for a moment, concentrate on the random bit of scenery plonked down in the middle of nowhere – as seen on oh-so-many gaming tables the world over 🙂

I was rummaging through some old scribblings this morning when I came across the following. Written to a friend as part of a discussion on how figure gaming has changed since I was a lad, it is a tongue-in-cheek view from a grizzled old grognard that I thought you might find amusing.

28mm* is the scale that gentlemen game in. In the (good) old days you’d make an exception for modern games (WWII on) because of the availability of 20mm models and little else. When 6mm WWII came in you could excuse it on the grounds of mass tank battles. Occasionally people would do skirmish games in 54mm, but they were weird. Everything else was cause to check someone’s levels of medication.

15mm gaming turned up later as an aberration caused by lack of funds, bought only when people couldn’t afford proper (28mm*) armies. The models and games have never looked as good to my eye. The only exception is WWII+ where the small size allows vehicles and long-ranged weapons to be used more comfortably. Smaller scales follow the old Soviet principle that quantity has a quality all its own.

Since then the market has ballooned and you can get models in a huge array of scales, which is nice, confusing, and frustrating in equal measure.

I have gamed in most scales over the years, and can see more merit in non-28mm scales than the above may suggest. Even so, if I listen to my emotions rather than my head then this heritage still strongly influences how I think about scale. Initial experiences are formative ones. Even now I’d still plump for a table full of beautifully painted and ranked 28mm Ancients if I had to pick a single image to define wargaming. For me, that is. I suspect that there are a handful of different archetypes that people could name, and for many people I bet that there would be a correlation between the archetype you choose and your age.

So which image of figure gaming is your archetype?

*Of course, when I say 28mm I really mean 25mm, but that was before they ate all the pies.