Entre Nous

Readers may have noticed the lack of content from our club blog lately. Summer is always a busy time, and I have recently taken a new job that has cut back my ability to write any blog articles – combined with having a six month old and a three year old =)

The good news is that the hobby train never stops. We powered through the Michigan GT, selling out the Bolt Action event with 16 players, setting up the best looking tables in the room and everyone having a great time.

There are a few things we’ll change for next year with regards to forces and rules but nothing ruined it.

We also entered four players in the Horus Heresy narrative event and had a great time. We really pushed each other to get 2,000 pts of dudes painted in time and it worked! It was pretty cool seeing story-driven armies on the board duking it out, throwing off their power armor and embracing each other after a hard fought victory for the “traitors”.

We are planning a re-launch of the blog to really kick it back into gear. Our Facebook page, YouTube Page, and Tumblr page are all doing well, it is just this page that is flagging a bit. Look for more content in the next few months on a consistent basis that is consistently innovative and worth reading.

He's not concerned with yesterday, He knows constant change is here today

I plan to write more about this in the near future, but one of the biggest things to happen to our club especially in the last two years has been the explosion of small, easily managed, affordable, fun and strategic wargames that have come out and interested us. The availability of Kickstarter, plastic manufacturing in China, and CAD has made it so much easier to bring a brand new wargame to market.

This is great for us! Sometimes you hear ‘ANOTHER game?’, but you can buy and paint a new ‘army’ for some of these games with $100 and a few weeks. If you play it a few times a year it was a worthwhile investment.

Even if you think you’re only interested in sci-fi games, look at what has happened recently – Mantic is marched on half a million dollars on their Warpath Kickstarter, Gates of Antares is releasing to a huge amount of hype and pre-orders, and Dropzone Commander has been kicking ass with new releases, awesome models, and strategic rules. Infinity released a new edition and lots of new models that are now CAD designed.

The fact is, we're living in a post Games Workshop dominated world. You don’t have to build a ‘collection’, a massive 10,000 point army, collect 10 different books to play, etc. You can find a game where models are $2 per infantry model instead of $8-$10. That means you won’t look at your DZC guys sitting on a shelf and think they’re a sunk cost, and you must only play that. The investment is so much smaller. You’re buying a Segway, not a boat. Get one Segway per game, not three boats.

The variety of models and rules out there now means we’re living in a golden age of wargaming. You aren’t stuck with just one or two rulesets anymore – there are tons of options. One of my favorite quotes I hear is ‘Play the period, not the rules’. This is a tagline from Too Fat Lardies (a British rules company).

It is pretty cool to get into one of these games and realize that they’ve only had one or maybe two editions. There hasn’t been enough time for strategies to be ingrained, rules quirks to become rules necessities, or special rules piled upon special rules upon special rules that mostly do the same thing.

It makes it so much easier to play a game of Firestorm Armada one weekend, Bolt Action during the week, Dropzone Commander another weekend, etc. You are truly playing the ‘period’ or story, not the rules.

I will choose a path that's clear, I will choose freewill

You don’t have to choose to play GW games or not anymore. Brand loyalty is something for gadget culture types. Companies like Mantic, Corvus Belli, Warlord, PP, etc want you to be a customer. Games should not be a life choice.

Try new games – play fun stuff with club mates that are interested in a new game, paint something different, learn new techniques that you can then share. Join us in the golden age.