Tabletop Terrain » Polls

Poll Roundup: Economic Downturn Reducing Your Hobby Spending?

Stu — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:52:35 +0000

* 28% (99) – No.
* 23% (81) – Yes, a little.
* 21% (74) – Yes, moderately.
* 27% (96) – Yes, a lot.

Total Votes: 350

I left this poll running for quite some time, because the global situation just seems to have been getting constantly worse this year. Here in New Zealand we’re partially insulated from the sub-prime meltdown by having a simpler banking system, different legislation around mortgages and a high interest rate – which gives our Reserve Bank a fair amount of room to cut rates in an attempt to stimulate our flagging economy.

However trust me it’s still looking pretty grim on our little island in the Pacific so my hobby spending this year has been almost nil as we struggle to pay the mortgage, the other bills, and keep our two boys in daycare/school etc. It seems I’m not alone judging from the results of the poll with less than a third of you stating your hobby spending hasn’t changed at all, while the rest of the voters have reduced their spending by some amount, almost a third of you by a lot.

The game company and figure manufacturers out there must really be feeling the pinch I imagine. Particularly since prices for casting metals have been increasing at the same time. Putting your prices up while your customers are already reducing their hobby spend is a pretty bad place to be in for niche businesses. Tabletop Gaming News regularly features price increase notices from various quarters, and I wonder if we’ll start seeing indie manufacturers closing their doors. I certainly hope not since indie figures really inject a lot of life into this hobby.

Continuing with the doom and gloom, I suffer from mild depression and have noticed that periodically it effects my enjoyment of gaming. Normally I’m a pretty relaxed gamer, having fun in a game as long as it’s close thing regardless of the outcome. However I find if I’m down I seem to devolve into more a win-at-all costs power gamer with a side order of rules lawyer. I dislike gaming at all when I’m in this state of mind, simply because I don’t extract any pleasure from the game itself and usually just end up offending my opponents by being a ‘whiny little bitch’ (their words). In fact I’ve started making a conscious choice not to game when I’m feeling like this because it’s just easier on everybody.

So this next poll we’re running is to do with power gaming – are you a win-at-all-costs kinda gamer or not? Come on fess up!

Poll Roundup: Play a Collectible Miniature Game?

Stu — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 06:29:56 +0000

Would you play a Collectible Miniature Game?

* 71% (149) – Yes
* 29% (62) – No

I happily play a CCG (Collectible Card Game) amongst my friends, however CMGs (Collectible Miniature Games) like Pirates of the Spanish Main, Dreamblade and the recently announced Monsterpocalypse don’t really attract me at all. The problem with any collectible game was highlighted by the cancellation of Dreamblade late 2007. Once official support and tournaments for the game are gone, who really cares? Certainly you can still play the game yourself, but the money you’ve spent paying for rare and powerful figures or cards has been wasted because overnight their resale value becomes nil.

Also as a modeler I find the figures offered in CMGs universally poor in terms of casting and painting. Hence they have no intrinsic attraction that drives me to collect them. However it seems I’m in the minority in this respect judging from our last poll as two thirds of the visitors would happily play CMG games – which ones I wonder? Perhaps I’m not looking at the right games…

Our next poll relates to purchasing new games too. Locally here in New Zealand we’re facing something of an economic downturn, driven largely by the continued weakness of the greenback and the US sub-prime mortgage debacle which is driving local interest rates up, on the back of a bunch of 2007 hikes from our friendly reserve bank. This means salary earning mortgage holders like yours truly have been watching our spending in the last twelve months, and the first thing to get cut was hobby spending. Are you in the same boat?

Poll Roundup: Which Unfinished Project Next?

Stu — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 07:59:20 +0000

Which Unfinished Project Next?

* 26% (28) – Mordheim Cathedral
* 18% (19) – Second Facade
* 17% (18) – DAK Germans
* 11% (12) – Vampire Tower
* 9% (9) – Mordheim Church
* 8% (9) – Dragon Paratroopers
* 7% (8) – Carthaginians
* 5% (5)- Early Romans

Total Votes: 108

In the immortal words of Bill the Cat: Ack!

I should have know when I started this poll that you, my gentle visitors would vote for the largest, most complex outstanding project I have in the garage. I can only think you’re mostly Hirst Arts fans, or you’re mostly sadists!

At any rate I’m closing this poll with my Hirst Arts Cathedral project being the clear winner, followed by the second 15mm building facade. I’ve started working on the Cathedral again and hope to have the basic floor glued down this week, naturally I’ll post that once it’s done.

Unfortunately, despite the fact the last poll was an effort to pick an existing unfinished project to complete, I’ve just started another new project! Fortunately this one will be fairly quick to do and has a strict deadline. I’ll post about that this week too.

Poll Roundup: Where Do You Game the Most?

Stu — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 03:33:33 +0000

Where Do You Game the Most?

* 52% (83) – At Home?
* 18% (29) – At Friend’s Homes?
* 16% (26) – At Local Stores?
* 12% (19) – At Local Gaming Clubs?
* 2% (4) – At Tournaments?

Total Votes: 161

As I’ve started another poll, I’d better roundup the previous one. In retrospect this probably wasn’t the most interesting poll question to answer. Of course most people game at home like myself because it’s simply the most convenient. It’s also no surprise that more people game in-store than in clubs, because of course there’s typically more gaming stores than there are gaming clubs!

As an older gamer (almost 40) I also derive more pleasure from gaming with relaxed friends my own age than I suspect I would gaming with angry, testosterone filled youths at a local store. But perhaps that’s a slightly blinkered attitude! I will admit I have considered packing up some Pulp figures and terrain and trying to get a few demo games going in local stores on their regular game nights.

I am surprised to see the four people that game the most at tournaments! They are presumably hard-core gamers with legions of well painted figures at their call. Something that I doubt I’ll ever aspire to, particularly since I’m such a slow painter and I live in New Zealand, where gaming tournaments tend to be fairly small, semi-formal affairs. For a decent GW sponsored torney for example I’d have to fly to Aussie.

Visitors may have noticed this blog is a little quiet again…all I can say is blame Valve and their ‘Orange Box’ deal!

Poll: Which Unfinished Project Next?

Stu — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 00:56:11 +0000

If you’re a regular visitor you may have noticed I’ve been on a 28mm Pulp gaming bender recently. I’ve achieved a fair amount but have paid the price because I feel a little uninspired at the moment. This usually happens to me if I’ve been modeling in one genre for too long.

So gentle readers, here’s a chance for you to control this humble modeler, automaton-like! Which outstanding project would you like to see me work on next?

Vote now! Once we get 100 votes in the poll I’ll start working on the winner!

Ancients:

Moderns:

Fantasy:

The Vampire Counts Tower
Hirst Arts Mordheim Church (wow that’s an old link)
Hirst Arts Cathedral

If this poll works out well, I’d consider doing this from now on to be honest. As I really need to finish some of my outstanding projects and not get distracted by any shiny new toys!

Poll Roundup: Do You Paint for Display?

Stu — Thu, 10 May 2007 22:36:14 +0000

Do you paint for display?

* 7% (10) – No, I game with bare metal and plastic.
* 46% (62) – No, I only paint for gaming.
* 41% (55) – Yes, occasionally I paint for display but mostly for gaming.
* 5% (7) – Yes, I paint for display exclusively, I don’t game.

Total Votes : 134

As I’m squarely in the “No, I only paint for gaming” category this was an interesting poll for me. Almost half of the respondents do display painting, and 5% of them paint exclusively for display. As you can probably tell from the recent post about 1:35th German Paratroopers I am interesting in trying some pure display painting, but to be honest I’ve got so much on the go I don’t know when I’ll get around to it!

I was surprised to see 7% of the respondents game with bare metal and plastic figures. I’ve certainly done that in the past (mostly for 40k and Warhammer Fantasy) but frankly playing war games with fully painted figures and terrain is definitely worth the effort it requires. I’m certainly looking forward to revealing a fully painted Cairo table to my players and see how they enjoy gaming over it. So I’d implore those gamers to either paint their figures, or try a system with a lower figure count!

This next poll is a bit of a random question: I’ve war gamed for around 20 years but have only attended a handful of tournaments and store games in all that time and usually as a spectator. For the rest of my gaming life I’ve played with a small group of friends either at their houses or at mine, so I’m curious to hear where other people game most of the time?

Although returning to the point about painted terrain, now I have all this painted Pulp terrain I wonder if I should offer to run some Pulp .45 Adventure demo games at local stores to try and recruit some more Pulp gamers!

Poll Roundup: How Many Unfinished Armies?

Stu — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 21:09:59 +0000

How many unfinished armies do you own?

* 5% (7) – None, they’re all painted.
* 18% (25) – Just one army.
* 14% (20) – A couple of armies.
* 15% (21) – Three armies.
* 12% (16) – Four armies.
* 36% (49) – Five or more armies!

Total Votes : 138

Ah this poll sees me in good company. It seems collectively (well at least amongst the visitors here) hobbyists are an easily distracted lot. Or perhaps we’ve just got eclectic tastes and enjoy so many varied game systems that the majority of us have at least a couple of armies on the go at once?

I do feel a slight twinge of jealousy when I see some of us (5%) have either painted every army we own, or do have to fortitude to resist purchasing new armies until their current one is completed. Kudos to you!

Personally I’m glad there’s numerous excellent tabletop games available that use 15mm scale figures. I’ve found this scale to be a fine compromise between having detailed figures that are interesting to paint, and them being small enough that a simple three step prime/base/highlight scheme will suffice for gaming.

Larger scales seem to have diminishing returns, taking considerably more of my precious time to paint a single figure. Games Workshop figures are probably the worse culprit because they’re so rich in surface detail that I’m forced to try and do it justice. So a single 28mm GW metal can take me days of modelling time to paint.

This next poll is sort of related to that point. I game and I paint to game, and have done so on and off for 20 years. I recall having painted one figure purely for display, an old Grenadier DnD Knight, when I was 15 for some local painting competition. Display painting appeals to me though as an opportunity to expand your painting skills and try new techniques, I just never have enough spare time to do it!

So, onto the next poll: Do you paint for Display?

Poll Roundup: Black or White Primer?

Stu — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 21:11:06 +0000

Black or White primer?

* 62% (73) – Black primer!
* 18% (21) – White primer!
* 19% (22) – Gray primer!
* 2% (2) – Some other colour?!

Total Votes : 118

Of all the random polls I’ve run on this blog, this one has been the first that totally defied my expectations. I’ve always used a white primer on figures, apart from one failed experiment with black priming GW Skaven several years ago. However it would seem I’m very clearly in the minority as almost two thirds of the poll respondents use a black primer.

I’ll admit a black primer is probably more forgiving during painting, allowing you to get away with a few crimes. I know this for a fact because I primed most of my Mordheim terrain to a solid black prior to drybrushing. Although I find a good ink wash after applying the base colours over a white prime has pretty much the same effect. I mainly prime white simply because it’s easier to cover with the base coat and gives most colours a nice ‘lift’.

To the black primers out there, do you find it difficult to get good coverage from your colours over black? Are you applying multiple coats of base colours to cover it? Here’s another question, if you’re currently black priming now, have you tried white priming in the past? Also, does anybody out there use black and white priming for different figures? A final priming question: I imagine the 19% of people priming gray are using cheap auto primer, but what on earth are the two visitors that answered ’some other colour’ using?!

The next poll is a question I’m sure a lot of people will be happy to avoid:

How many unfinished armies do you own?

My current hall of shame goes like this:

28mm GW Warhammer Fantasy
- Vampire Counts
- Orcs and Goblins
28mm GW Warhammer 40k
- Imperial Guard (only been 18 years now)
- Nurgle Chaos
- Tyranids
15mm Flames of War
- New Zealanders (almost finished, just some gun tractors and lorries to paint)
- DAK Armored
15mm Ancients
- Romans
- Carthaginians

Hence my plan to get more painting and less purchasing done in 2007!

Poll Roundup: Favourite Gaming Genre?

Stu — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 00:12:22 +0000

Favourite gaming genre?

* 31% (41) – Fantasy
* 24% (32) – World Wars (I & II)
* 18% (24) – Science Fiction
* 5% (6) – Any Genre, added by visitor
* 5% (6) – Fantasy and Science Fiction, added by visitor
* 5% (7) – Steam Punk (PP), added by visitor
* 4% (5) – Near Future Sci-Fi/Ultra Modern, added by visitor
* 3% (4) – Ancient Historical (pre 1500s)
* 3% (4) – Modern Historical (post 1500s)
* 2% (3) – Modern (post WWII)

Total Votes : 132

Time I wrapped the last poll up I think, so here’s the results which probably simply reflects the way visitors actually find my blog. Initially I started blogging mainly about Mordheim (Fantasy) and these days I’m mainly yammering on about Flames of War (WWII) and Pulp Gaming in a sort of mid-World-War setting. On reflection Fantasy is probably always going to be the most popular gaming genre, simply because it’s the most familiar and flexible setting.

It’s nice to see some sensible visitor added ‘Any Genre’ to the poll and I can see their point. If the game is enjoyable enough to play the genre is secondary. Personally I’m not really tied to any genre either being more of a hobbyist and painter than a hard core gamer. I don’t know who added ‘Fantasy AND Science Fiction’, but that’s two genres – I guess they couldn’t pick a favourite!

Anyway, the next poll is a contentious question: White or black primer? Which do you use for your figures? I’ve been painting figures for almost 20 years (on and off) and have always used white primer except for one failed experiment where I black primed some GW Mordheim skaven and attempted to paint them. I find white priming gives you a good base to lay down colours prior to ink washing, whereas black priming tends to deaden colours and requires more effort to cover. However I do black prime all of my terrain, here black nicely hides scratch built details and gets into all those nooks and crannies your dry brushing won’t.

For my Flames of War armies I experimented with brown priming – GW’s Scorched Brown painted over a white primer. I would have used a brown spray primer if I could have found one! Brown priming turns out to be an excellent choice for painting 15mm North African troops because it gives you instant ‘blacklining’ with minimal effort.

Poll Roundup: Favourite Figure Scale?

Stu — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 20:38:49 +0000

This poll finished a while ago, but I completely forgot to post up the results! So here they are:

Your favourite figure scale?

0% (0) Over 32mm?
54% (55) 28-32mm?
11% (11) 20-25mm?
34% (34) 15mm-10mm?
1% (1) Under 10mm?

Total Votes : 101

So no visitors favor painting 40mm/54mm scale figures? There’s some excellent examples for sale, like Hasslefree’s 40mm Artemis (she’s a naked warrior goddess so may not be safe for work), the new Femme Militant line (annoying Flash site though) and the failed Games Workshop Inquisitor 54mm. These GW figures tempted me, until they starting releasing the excellent 28mm Inquisitor retinue figures for 40k that is. I mean, why play Inquisitor with 54mm figures and a whole new set of terrain when I can just reuse my 28mm figures and existing terrain? Even so 54mm Inquisitor figures still crop up on TradeMe regularly and I’ve nearly grabbed one or two for display painting.

I myself am torn between the 28mm and 15mm scales. 28mm figures can have a lot of detail and be quite enjoyable to paint, but I’m such a slow painter because I like to try and achieve a reasonable paint job on each and every figure. For this reason alone I suspect I’m slowly swinging towards the 15mm camp, particularly after discovering how quickly one can paint an entire 1500pt WWII Flames of War force if you put your mind to it. This is the real reason both Flashpoint’s 17mm Moderns and Corvus Bellis’ 15mm Ancients attract me.

Poll Roundup: Giving up GW games?

Stu — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 21:51:40 +0000

Here’s the results of our last poll. I’m having a hard time coming up with monthly questions, so from now on I’m leaving each poll up until it gets at least one hundred votes.

Giving up Games Workshop games?

18% (18) No! Never! GW is the best!
37% (38) No, but I play other systems too.
36% (37) Yes, other systems are better!
9% (9) Never bothered playing GW games.

Total Votes : 102

I think those are quite interesting results from those of you that voted. It seems most (91%) people have been exposed to Games Workshop’s product at some point in their gaming lives but many of you have, or are moving on from GW, with only 18% of voters still playing their games to exclusion.

Speaking personally GW was the first serious tabletop miniature game I played way back in 1988, prior to that I was only using small numbers of figures for D&D and Runequest RPGs. I happily played 40k for years (15 give or take) until becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the costs involved as well as the rules themselves. This led me to investigate other, more exotic beasts in the GW ’stables’. Mordheim being the one I’ve played the most (I must also try Necromunda), which in turn led me back to Warhammer Fantasy briefly, before I discovered the Vampire Counts force I’d thrown together sucked. Most recently my gaming has started following my reading habits, with my interest in WWII history leading me to play the excellent Flames of War system produced by a local New Zealand manufacturer no less and my long term love of Raymond Chandler’s novels (and the related film noir) driving me to try Pulp gaming with .45 Adventure. I’m having great fun playing both these systems at the moment and my GW figures are slowly gathering dust.

As promised the next poll does not relate to GW, well not directly. I’m curious, what’s your favourite figure scale to model and paint in? I’ve also added a new discussion link for this poll too.

Poll Roundup: Games Workshop’s CAD Sculpting

Stu — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 01:29:36 +0000

Crikey, another month gone. Here’s the results of May’s poll:

Will Games Workshop’s new computer based sculpting:

* 11% (6) Make plastic figures worse?
* 35% (19) Make the plastic figures better?
* 20% (11) Make the plastic figures cheaper?
* 35% (19) Change nothing?

Total Votes : 55

So it seems most people think things will stay the same or get better. An optimistic few think Games Workshop plastics might actually get cheaper! Given the amount of trumpeting GW have been doing about how the new computer aided sculpting solution will speed their production techniques and allow them to produce more unique sprues a year, they logically should.

Historically mass production lowers prices after all. Given GW have priced themselves out of my personal hobbyist budget, and considering that by day I’m a mid-30’s fully employed white collar professional, one wonders if their falling figures sales might simply have something to do with their products no longer representing good value for money to the average 18-24 year old? Still this is a niche market, which is GW’s traditional rationale for regularly increasing prices.

Continuing in the GW bashing trend that seems to have developed, I’m interested to hear if anybody has stopped playing GW games recently for another reason: because their games just aren’t that much fun compared to other alternatives?

I’ve been finding Flames of War is currently occupying a lot of my hobby and gaming time and despite my usual dismal dice rolling and regular losses I’m enjoying every game of it. Games seem to always be a close run thing, and I’ve only had one game (against German armor) that I’d classify as a ‘depressing round of exercising the rules’ because the game was a sure thing by the second or third turn – for the Germans of course. However in 40k and WHFB I find these kinds of games crop up with monotonous regularity.

Consequentially my WHFB and 40k armies are going back in the cupboard and any GW modelling I do in the near future will once again be Mordheim related.

I swear next month’s poll will be totally unrelated to GW.

Poll Roundup: Did Tau need a New Codex?

Stu — Sat, 06 May 2006 20:34:49 +0000

Well as April has ended I guess I’d better change polls! Here’s the final results for April’s poll about the Tau.

Did the 40k Tau need a new Codex?

21% (7): Yes! The old codex was broken
30% (10): Yes! Old Tau were a one trick pony
12% (4): No! Tau are even more unbalanced now
36% (12): No! GW must have a Tau overstock

Total Votes : 33

So it seems people are split between the Tau needing a new Codex or not. Personally they’re the single reason I’m considering dropping 40k, or at least not bothering to play against Tau armies. Even though the Imperial Guard have been improved by 4th Edition they’re still a shooty army that just can’t shoot as well as these Xenos. Every game I play against them is simply not enjoyable and frankly I play games for fun. There’s a lot of other systems I could invest a 4 hour evening in.

If you’ve seen the latest Asia/Pacific White Dwarf #316 you may have noticed a vague two page article by Jervis Johnson that really told you nothing except that Games Workshop have changed to a new computer based sculpting method for their plastic sprues. Of course most of us knew this already.

Personally I’m curious to see how this new method impacts the quality and price of GW’s plastic figure lines. It will certainly allow them to produce the steel injection molds needed for plastic much more quickly. But will the figure quality be reduced? And more importantly, considering this process reduces costs for GW to produce plastic lines, will we see a price reduction at the consumer end? Now price reduction doesn’t mean just the box price, they could give us more figures per box for the same price. Yeah I know what you’re all thinking but I reckon it’s a valid question. Weigh in with your opinion in the May poll!

Poll Roundup: Modelling vs Gaming?

Stu — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 04:03:08 +0000

It seems most of the people that visit and vote are here for the terrain, according to March’s poll results (from 45 votes):

51% : Making the terrain
27% : Painting the figures
22% : Rolling the dice

That’s pretty close to my personal feelings about this hobby too. I spend vast amounts of time making and painting terrain (hence this blog) and considerably less time painting figures and playing the games. I do enjoy the figures but it takes me a devil of a long time to paint even a single 28mm model to a standard I’m happy with.

I’m also only a fairly mediocre gamer with a history of really crappy dice rolling behind me. That’s why I started playing the Imperial Guard in 40k Rogue Trader, because I figured a fistful of dice must surely compensate for my low rolling! I tend to play for an amusing game rather than being overly concerned about winning, which means I’ll sometimes do tactically poor things simply for the elan! That might also explain my love of skirmish level games.

Anyway this month’s poll is about my current 40k pet peeve. The dirty Tau xenos! As an Imperial Guard player the Tau infuriate me with the broad range of inordinately cheap war gear that pretty much breaks every rule in the 40k shooting phase. I find they’re an incredibly frustrating opponent because most of the time I feel like I’m simply trying to beat their rules rather than the other player.

Favourite Game Poll Results II

Stu — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 23:20:46 +0000

Dlonnon from the DarkWing blog commented on the previous post, filling in a little of the missing information. This post is an edited version of his comment:

Stargrunt 2 is a game put out by Ground Zero Games. It is best described as Vietnam in space. It has a miniature line (fairly “realistic”) but the system itself is generic. Probably most famous for it’s complete lack of point system.

That reminds me of Starship Troopers by Mongoose Publishing which we also didn’t see in the poll results. This game has some great looking ’sci fi bug’ miniatures that would look at home in any futuristic wargame.

Points systems are an interesting topic in themselves. Numerous people criticise Flames of War for it’s rather artificial inclusion of a GW-like points system in a historical wargame. However for any tabletop game that features regularly in tournaments points would seem to be the easiest way to go.

Speaking of Vietnam, can anybody recommend a good 28mm scale moderns skirmish ruleset? I’ve seen some great moderns terrain on Terragenesis which has piqued my interest.

Warzone is the original 40k clone (at least the first that was fairly successful). It was originally published by Target games (about 8 years ago), and briefly died when Target’s parent company went belly up (Warzone itself was said to be profitable). The rights were bought by Excelsior Games and they’ve slowly been revamping the rules and miniatures. A side note: Void was founded/started by ex-Target employees. The base rules for Void are almost identical to the old Warzone rules (except they 1/2′d the stats and used a d10 instead of a d20).

Interesting…although after 15 years of playing GW games I do prefer a D6 based game so I’ll stick with 40k and the three armies I already own.

I’d guess that “Railway Wars” was really the Great Rail Wars. It was put out by Pinnacle Enterainment Group. It was the miniature game that went with the RPG Deadlands. It is also the basis for the RPG/miniature game Savage Worlds. Savage Worlds is weird in that it’s both an RPG AND a miniatures game. Rumour has it will be re-released shortly after Deadlands Reloaded (a rewrite of the Deadlands RPG using the Savage Worlds rules), which should be out within the next month (in the US). The miniatures are still available from Jeff Valent’s Studios. They are good Western figures, but a smidge on the large size.

On further reflection those Jeff Valent figures aren’t the ones I’ve seen on the web. That range had a number of interesting figures like Chinese railway workers etc. It was probably one of the figure manufacturers listed on this ‘Wild West’ page however.

As an aside Jeff Valent Studios are an excellent supplier for sculpting tools and putties including very cheap ‘Green Stuff’.

Probably more than you wanted to know.

No that’s great information! Despite being a confirmed GW fanboy I’m always interested in other game systems…particularly since many of them come with their own unique figure ranges.