Let me explain why I think this is the case. At my local
shop (Imperial Outpost) out of the ten or so game tables, you would see a plethora
of miniature games being played. Everything from 40K & Fantasy to Flames of
War and other miniature games. Heck it used to be hard to get a table due to
all the miniature games being played. But in the last few years I have seen a
decline in games being played in the shop.
Now, certain companies have not helped with this either by
changing up their rules or discontinuing rules. Some companies have also raised
prices to a level you would think you were getting solid gold figures instead
of plastic and resin. And before you say it, there are many companies that have
raised their prices, I can think of three companies that have product on my
local shops walls that have suffered from price creep.
So I wonder if this has caused the miniature gaming
community to look for alternate games? Has the miniature player base had enough?
I don’t know, it is just that I am not seeing the same level of gaming activity
like I did in the past.
Now part of the problem may be with games like X-Wing and
Attack Wing, while these are miniature games, they really are not. Yes, you
have miniature ships, but its more about the cards you have. I watched a local
tournament recently, and I was shocked at just how many cards most players had.
And listening to players talk about tactics, it was more about what equipment
card you needed to make a certain ship be unbeatable. It was more about the
cards that the miniatures.
And speaking of the miniatures, they are great and well
painted. That may be one reason in regular miniature gaming. The ships are pre
painted and ready to go out of the box. I overheard one young player (17 – 19 years
old) say the reason he got into this games was that he could not paint, he sold
off all his 40K stuff to get into X-Wing. In fact, one time when my buddy and I
were playing the Spartan game Halo, we had many people walk up to the table and
ask if the models came out of the box painted like X-Wing. You should have seen
the looks we got when we said you had to assemble the models and paint them, it
was like we threw a sunk at them.
Maybe that’s the problem in decline in miniature games, the
time commitment to building and painting. I have noticed that the younger gamer
(younger than this old 47-year-old man) that they do not have the attention
span to commit to painting a whole army or project. Perhaps that is the allure
of other games. Another store here in the valley had a ton of Magic players,
while the store owner was a huge miniature gamer. He often told me that his
customers had no money and little time to buy and paint miniatures. But man,
they had money for the latest Magic card release and man they could shell out a
ton of money for snacks!
Board games are at least trying to keep miniatures alive,
you are seeing more board games that are coming with actual miniatures. Games
like Zombicide and others have entered the market to take their place in the
board game world. But these are really more board games than miniature games.
Yeah, you can use your zombies in other games, but they were made for the board
game. A certain company has started to
release special miniatures with these basic games, capitalizing on the board
game phenomena. I guess you can blame them.
So I wonder if other folks are seeing this in their neck of
the woods or is it me just going a little bit crazy (could be that!). Are you seeing more board and card games being played over miniatures? All I
know is that I will keep doing what I enjoy and that collecting, painting and
playing with miniatures.
TK
