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.

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.

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!