Chugosh
12-18-2010, 10:54 AM
I've been playing games of one sort or another for over thirty years, mostly roleplaying games. I'm just now dropping the roleplaying and going in for miniature wargaming instead. I don't have much experience with this branch of the overall wargaming hobby. Only once, this time last year, have I dabbled in Warhammer 40,000, though for a long time I have admired the games and models I've seen. I had a couplke black reaches worth of Orcs, but I found I wasn't enjoying them very much, so I sold them away again, along with the rulebooks and templates, keeping only the dice and the paints I had picked up in my purchases.
Anyway, I'm aiming to get into some game or another. At this point, the front runners are Firestorm Armada from Spartan Games andCOLOR="DarkOrange"] Kings of War [/COLOR]from Mantic. Firestorm because it is all about giant space ships and has great toy value, but the entry is steep for me, even at only thirty bucks for the book and sixty for the basic fleet box. That is the reason I'm not really looking at any of the GW stuff at this time, unless I luck my way into an army or something. (I saw an army go on Freecycle and was snapped up in minutes. Maybe seconds.) KoW has some great looking models, and even though Fantasy is not my first choice for play, the free rules make it very interesting indeed. Sort of fun to think of being on the ground floor of a game, in either of the above cases. (Firestorm is only two years old, barely, and the rules are just out last month for Kings of War.)
Two of the biggest factors in my change from rpgs are my family and my job. My kids are at an age where they can enjoy games, and it is easier to teach them a wargame than an rpg. My job takes a whole lot of my time. I drive about five hundred miles a day, and with the loading and dumping and whatnot, that takes twelve or thiteen hours a day. Not a lot of prep time for rpgs. Sure modeling and painting aren't less time consuming, but then those parts of the hobby can be done a little at a time. Also a game can be two hours for a wargame, while rpgs take at least twice as long in my experience. Added to those large factors is the only slightly smaller factor of meeting new people through wargaming communty events and so forth. I still like my rpg friends, of course, but it is good to meet new people (and hack them to bits?).
I found this forum because Mantic said they were having a poll over here about their new Khaos Dwarf line and I decided to throw my vote in. I have yet to actually find the poll.
Anyway, I'm aiming to get into some game or another. At this point, the front runners are Firestorm Armada from Spartan Games andCOLOR="DarkOrange"] Kings of War [/COLOR]from Mantic. Firestorm because it is all about giant space ships and has great toy value, but the entry is steep for me, even at only thirty bucks for the book and sixty for the basic fleet box. That is the reason I'm not really looking at any of the GW stuff at this time, unless I luck my way into an army or something. (I saw an army go on Freecycle and was snapped up in minutes. Maybe seconds.) KoW has some great looking models, and even though Fantasy is not my first choice for play, the free rules make it very interesting indeed. Sort of fun to think of being on the ground floor of a game, in either of the above cases. (Firestorm is only two years old, barely, and the rules are just out last month for Kings of War.)
Two of the biggest factors in my change from rpgs are my family and my job. My kids are at an age where they can enjoy games, and it is easier to teach them a wargame than an rpg. My job takes a whole lot of my time. I drive about five hundred miles a day, and with the loading and dumping and whatnot, that takes twelve or thiteen hours a day. Not a lot of prep time for rpgs. Sure modeling and painting aren't less time consuming, but then those parts of the hobby can be done a little at a time. Also a game can be two hours for a wargame, while rpgs take at least twice as long in my experience. Added to those large factors is the only slightly smaller factor of meeting new people through wargaming communty events and so forth. I still like my rpg friends, of course, but it is good to meet new people (and hack them to bits?).
I found this forum because Mantic said they were having a poll over here about their new Khaos Dwarf line and I decided to throw my vote in. I have yet to actually find the poll.