I like minis games, but can take or leave minis

Despite my hatred for sprues and the fact that I don't paint shit. I still love mini's AND standees. I'll take either one over a chit in a heartbeat. I am done with chits. Too many games in the 80's that I played had chits and I'm just not a fan anymore. Given two games of reasonably equal quality or rep I'll choose the one with chrome every single time.

I get that the games are not improved by mini's or standees... not technically anyway, but I love the toy factor. I will set up games with my four old that we have no intention of playing properly (at four this should be obvious) and we just move them around and make action noises. It's a blast. For me boardgaming is an immature hobby by default and embracing the part of me that likes toys feels right.

If the question is "standees or chits", well that's much simpler. I fucking hate chits for the most part.

If a game is truly information-rich in term of an individual unit--not distilled down to say 2 or 3 stats and a small ability, then sure, I can understand standees as a necessary evil. Or for keeping the price point down on a game, perhaps, for certain audiences. Otherwise? Give me my goram minis, man.

In terms of Cthulhu Wars, the minis are part of the package. That package just happens to come at a premium price. And I'm okay with that. There's room in the market for that. I'm a gamer who wants his steak and sizzle. Fuck this minimalist bullshit...save that for family games. When it comes to honest-to-god motherfucking Ameritrash, give me my overproduced plastic goodness.

Ken B. wrote: If the question is "standees or chits", well that's much simpler. I fucking hate chits for the most part.

If a game is truly information-rich in term of an individual unit--not distilled down to say 2 or 3 stats and a small ability, then sure, I can understand standees as a necessary evil. Or for keeping the price point down on a game, perhaps, for certain audiences. Otherwise? Give me my goram minis, man.

In terms of Cthulhu Wars, the minis are part of the package. That package just happens to come at a premium price. And I'm okay with that. There's room in the market for that. I'm a gamer who wants his steak and sizzle. Fuck this minimalist bullshit...save that for family games. When it comes to honest-to-god motherfucking Ameritrash, give me my overproduced plastic goodness.

I wish you would have come back sooner.

charlest wrote:

Ken B. wrote: If the question is "standees or chits", well that's much simpler. I fucking hate chits for the most part.

If a game is truly information-rich in term of an individual unit--not distilled down to say 2 or 3 stats and a small ability, then sure, I can understand standees as a necessary evil. Or for keeping the price point down on a game, perhaps, for certain audiences. Otherwise? Give me my goram minis, man.

In terms of Cthulhu Wars, the minis are part of the package. That package just happens to come at a premium price. And I'm okay with that. There's room in the market for that. I'm a gamer who wants his steak and sizzle. Fuck this minimalist bullshit...save that for family games. When it comes to honest-to-god motherfucking Ameritrash, give me my overproduced plastic goodness.

I wish you would have come back sooner.

It's a ritualistic tradition, Charlie. I have to space these returns out or else they lose their meaning.

All I know is that I paid $275 for Incursion with all the minis and have no regrets despite already owning the standee version. For some games its worth the extra for me.

I like Minis because instead of dozens of games without minis sitting on my shelf not being played I have one game with dozens of minis sitting on my shelf not being played.

VonTush wrote: I like Minis because instead of dozens of games without minis sitting on my shelf not being played I have one game with dozens of minis sitting on my shelf not being played.

It's like having a bunch of friends over who text one another instead of talking! At least you're the tallest one in the room!

LMAO

Part of the appeal for minis is they are sturdier and harder to knock over than standee...hold on, I just knocked over that damned Defenders of the Realm dragon again...

...while Pete was knocking over his Ringwraiths from the 1st Ed. War of the Ring...

My biggest annoyance with minis in games is that the choices seem to be either 25 mm with tiny, indistinguishable details that are impossible to see without a paint job or over-exaggerated chibi figs. Not everything needs to be hyper-detailed "hobby quality." Yeah, the minis from Heroquest, Siege of the Citadel and Space Crusade don't have a ton of detail and look cartoony, but they have character and I can actually tell WTF I'm looking at.

lala wrote: I hate standees, but am a big fan of counters and blocks. Actually for many games my preferred solution is simply stickered discs. You can get a nice thematic and bold big icon in the middle, sometimes even some info (like a wargame counter), you can get wooden discs in bright punchy colours and overall I think it looks great. I've played Forlorn Hope, Doom, Incursion and Space Hulk with pretty much all the different options (minis, alternate minis, standees, and these discs) and to be honest, I actually overwhelmingly prefer the custom label stickered discs (actually, overwhelmingly is stretching it, for deathmatch mode DOOM I was very fond of Haloclix marines in red, blue, white, green for example)

Stickered discs is a great idea. My only complaint about Space Hulk the first time I owned it was that the board could feel pretty colored. I wonder how Horoscope would fare with stickered discs, however.

craniac wrote: I wonder how Horoscope would fare with stickered discs, however.

Autocorrect strikes again.

Heroscape has the "look to see if you can see the guy" line of sight rule, but otherwise it'd be playable. It's still a fun game with proxies, but it's more fun with all of the plastic, despite me being the guy who started this thread.

yeah I wondered how that would work but you could just house rule in using a stack of hexes for height and bob your stickered disc on top (you could even sticker a single hex and just bung that on top if you wanted but that would be a pain in the arse). You could also just use a hex to hex generic LOS system based on the height number on the sticker as well.

It's also really hard to totally hide something so it rarely comes up. Arguing about line of sight in Heroscape tournaments was a good way to get yourself on a word of mouth blacklist.

Yeah, that was a constant state of abuse and vitriol at tournaments. I hated playing that game because half the time you'd have a guy trying to argue that "you can see his big toe" on his side but when you had an obvious, clear shot they'd be scrutinizing it, looking at it from all angles. There are SO MANY PEOPLE I've dealt with like that and every time it took the patience of Job not to throat punch them. I hate rules lawyers, to begin with, but those are the worst sort. Guys like that are the reason I quit going to tournaments, which led to my ultimate abandonment of the game system, despite my deep love for it.