I like minis games, but can take or leave minis

I was pretty surprised when Charlie said that the "norm" for board games these days was $100. The stuff I've been buying lately have been a lot cheaper. (Evolution, Coup, Codenames, and stuff like Skull). But for games that have miniatures as a main component, especially those on kickstarter, this certainly seems to be the case. There's stuff like Imperial Assault, SCAM, Cthulhu Wars, and the behemoth that is Kingdom Death. I played Warhammer 40K briefly way back in the late 90s, and my army sat half-painted for years. I was always more into the tactical side of these kinds of games than the hobby side. Heroscape is what got me back into board gaming as a whole, as my friend got me a Master Set for my birthday back in 2007. I ended up spending hundreds of dollars on repeat squad and terrain purchases, but it was spread out over many small purchases over a few years. I always bought stuff because I was into the tournament scene that existed and I liked being able to play a lot of the armies. What I liked about it was how simple the rules were, the relatively low price point when it was at TRU/Target/Walmart, and not having to paint or assemble the miniatures at all. I'm probably one of the few people that got initially hooked on Heroscape because of the game...

I know that for a lot of people, miniatures are a huge draw. People think even if they don't like the game, they'll have cool minis. I'm getting to the point with a number of these games where I can't or won't pay to get these games that have over the top components. Cthulhu Wars should be the kind of game that I like, but Lovecraftian stuff is about as interesting to me as farming, so I don't feel like forking over a bunch of money for plastic I don't care about. I'll play my copy of day-glo Nexus Ops instead. (Which I traded entirely too much Descent 1E stuff for). Even though Dead of Winter isn't really a tactical game so it's not the kind of game that would normally have minis anyway, it showed me that standees with good art are quite serviceable. Games like Kingdom Death and Cthulhu Wars are selling largely on their cosmetic approach and grandiosity, but I'd play pauper versions if they ever existed.

Even beyond price, there's storage. My Heroscape stuff is sitting in the basement, hardly getting used. I'm holding onto it thinking that my girlfriend's son or my future kids I might have will totally dig it. It feels like it'd be a shame to eBay or Craig's list it all away.

Anyone one else feeling this way about miniatures? Or should I just start working 80 hours a week and cutting sprues for 10?

For me it's about the storage. I'm about to get my buddy's copy of Space Hulk from his estate and when I mentioned it to the others in my group one of them said he wanted it. It was all his as far as I'm concerned, I'm out of space for that kind of stuff.

I couldn't care less about miniatures in boardgames, because most of them aren't that good. Further, I don't buy that "well, if it sucks, I have all these cool minis!" argument because unless you play actual miniatures wargames, it's irrelevant, unless you like to display them, in which case I pity them.

Minis don't matter unless they serve the game. Dead of Winter would not have been better with miniatures. Battlestar Galactica would not have been better if it had miniaures (of the people). Conversely, Ravenloft would not have been as good with standies, and Space Hulk would not have been as amazing if it had not had cool miniatures. I might be wrong, since Incursion is awesome, standies and all....

But take this with a grain of salt. I have 123 miniatures on my desk right now, in various stages of painting.

You must have missed the memo...Barnes has been harping on this very subject for about 6-12 months give or take. It's not something that the whole site agrees with, but it certainly has been discussed.

Me, I like minis. I also like cardboard standees as long as they're done well. Games that do the cardboard standee thing really? Dead of Winter (as you mentioned), City of Horror, Legends of Andor...there are probably more. A well done standee can be just as nice as an unpainted mini. And I'll be honest, most people I play games with don't paint em.

I get the appeal of minis...I just don't think that they're necessary for every game. For something like Cthulhu Wars, yeah they're not necessary, but damn they're awesome. It makes the game unique. It makes the game stand out. It also makes sense. For thematic purposes, Cthuhlu and his crazy cohorts SHOULD tower over the rest of the minis. I was one of the people who thought Peterson Games should have release a version of CW with "normal" sized minis. Having finally played it, I don't think the normal minis make sense for the game. I just don't. Those big ass monstrosities are the way the game is meant to be experienced. They add to the game.

Companies like FFG and GW will always do the mini thing. But overall...I think the mini craze is just another fad/blip that is currently extremely popular. As long as companies keep making money AND delivering on their kickstarter promises, I don't see the craze going away anytime soon. I suspect that as more of these expensive games come out and fail to live up to the hype consumers will get more cautious. We shall see what happens though.

I like miniatures, but they generally don't add enough enjoyment to a game to make them worth the extra price or especially the extra hassle of painting them. I find well-executed cardboard standees to be almost as good, and a much better value. Arkham Horror has first-rate ones. The Hills Rise Wild has functional ones, because they also have a few useful stats printed on them, particularly movement rate. Even better, those Hills ones come with flat corpse tokens that match the art on the standup tokens:

boardgamegeek.com/image/1431932/hills-rise-wild

Minis are a major part of what sell games to passerbys/"casuals," they are the flashy graphics of the videogame world. I use to take games like Dune, Diplomacy, and Ogre, to fandom conventions for years, no one would ever want to play them. But setup Heroscape, World of Warcraft boardgame, or Fortress America, and boom, people come over wanting to see what it is.

If minis are the point of the game -- WH40K, Heroclix, X-Wing, etc -- then I'm not interested right away. I'm not good at those games, I don't like those games, so it makes no difference to me how cool the minis are.

For DOAM games and such, I'm also not much of a fan. I'm not going to paint them, so they need to be really distinguishable, otherwise they're just a big lump on the board. I don't want to have to look over a map and figure out which red blob is which kind of figure. I like standees because they look better right out of the box, but if they're too big then they block things I need to see. If I thought Dead of Winter was worth playing anyway, this might be a complaint I have about it.

Miniatures were a really poor component choice for War of the Ring, at least the original edition.

In general, I wouldn't want to play a DoaM that didn't have minis. Same goes for tactical games or dungeon crawly shit. Would I play X-Wing or Armada without the minis? Not these days I wouldn't. Games should dictate what pieces they need. Chits are the only solution for some games, cubes or blocks fine for others. Do the figures in Vlaada's Mage Knight add any value? Hell no. Dune is slightly DoaM-y but minis would be retarded. Armada without huge Imperial Star Destroyers would be equally farty IMO.

On the other hand, miniatures were the right choice for Spartacus. And the excellent pre-painted minis are one of the best things about Shadows Over Camelot.

Shellhead wrote: On the other hand, miniatures were the right choice for Spartacus. And the excellent pre-painted minis are one of the best things about Shadows Over Camelot.

For an additional charge.

I think it's interesting that $100 is now considered a reasonable MSRP. I don't think ten years ago anyone would have predicted that, and inflation has been running around 1.5% that entire time.

I actually like standees.

Shellhead wrote: Miniatures were a really poor component choice for War of the Ring, at least the original edition.

I think they enhance that game (I have the newer ed.) but what surprises me is how many people would pay so much to have painted copies when the sculpts are pretty shoddy and low detail. The Men of the North regulars look terrible. Rohan and Gondor are hard to differentiate, which is why I'm guessing so many want the paint jobs. Why they didn't poop out the plastic in different colors is bizarre.

Anyway, I'm not saying that painted ones don't look better but not a thousand dollars better on ebay.

For WotR, my biggest bitch is the wraiths suck. They don't stand. I had to base them and add washers to make them stay upright. That's so dumb.

@Sag: I don't think 100$ is acceptable, or even reasonable. I don't know of too many proper publishers pushing that. Only Kickstarter is really in that price space. I really want Shadows of Brimstone (damn you, Frank!) now but I can't do it. It's just too much damned coin for one game. I don't care how awesome it plays.

fastbilly1 wrote: Minis are a major part of what sell games to passerbys/"casuals," they are the flashy graphics of the videogame world. I use to take games like Dune, Diplomacy, and Ogre, to fandom conventions for years, no one would ever want to play them. But setup Heroscape, World of Warcraft boardgame, or Fortress America, and boom, people come over wanting to see what it is.

My experience is actually the exact opposite of this. The only people who I know who are about mini's are the hardcore oldschool D&D-ers. I whip out almost any game with mini's with that crew and it will always be a hit. I whip out a game with cardboard standies and while they'll still enjoy it I guarantee the acclaim would be higher if mini's were present.

The casuals that I game with are more likely to be scared/wary by games with mini's than be excited to play them.

As for me, I definitely have found myself appreciating a good mini, especially when there is an RPG element to the game where I am that character. I won't hold it against a game like Dead of Winter though, even though deep down I wish that game did have mini's instead of cardboard. I only care because of my D&D group and it would be fun to have a greater pool of mini's to pull from in the game that I DM because I know my group loves it.

Also my kids LOVE playing with mini's. They're just 2 and 3 right now but I'm excited to run them through games with mini's in a couple of years because of how much they enjoy playing with them. This is my biggest reason I justify backing a kickstarter game for $100 that comes with a boat load of mini's.