battlefield evoulution
- Thread starter zlatan
- Start date
Soulmage
Mongoose
Oh yeah!!!! Both of them!!!!
Seriously, except for FoW, 15mm is deader than fried chicken. There are a few relics around who have been gaming since the 70s that still play it, but it just has little appeal to the modern market. (I've only been gaming since about 1981, making me a young blood compared to some of these guys)
FoW is the exception because it draws on a big installed player base of 40k and Fantasy due to excellent cross-promotion and general disaffection with those games amongst the players. BUT Mongoose would be foolish to compete head to head with FoW, the people who play that game enjoy it, and are unlikely to spend significant money on ANOTHER 15mm contemporary combat game.
Instead, they're much better off going the route they've chosen. Use the 28mm scale to take advantage of the enhanced visual appeal factor to draw folks in. Lower the game's barriers to entry by making prepaints available which can easily be repainted by those with talent and time and sell it at a price point equal to or below unpainted stuff, so you're getting a great deal.
But. . . no launch of a new game/product would ever be complete without the howling of a vocal but small corner of the internet community, so howl on folks and fulfill your destiny to be the extremely vocal detractors forcasting the apocalypse with the release of the game. . . only to get into the game a year later and love it, or quietly fade into non-existence after its been out 8 months, everyone seems to like it, and the world doesn't come to an end.
Lieutenant Rasczak
Mongoose
My friend Nigel (the caster) has been wargaming more years than he cares to mention.
15mm is not a popular scale, 28mm to 36mm is the most popular scale range. Around 90% of all the work he does is in that range.
15mm is not a popular scale, 28mm to 36mm is the most popular scale range. Around 90% of all the work he does is in that range.
Soulmage,
Have to say you make some very good points. I am currently looking at FoW as my possible historical WW II game of choice.
I just ordered a bunch of the rulebooks and Intelligence Briefing Books to check out the system.
Once I have looked at the system I'll make my decision.
15mm Historicals miniatures seem to be more the choice of a lot of older Wargamers, Grognards etc. I myself am old by the standards of this Forum, perhaps not the oldest here but old enough.
My father served in WW II in the Combat Engineers, he landed on Omaha Beach at D-Day, H-hour plus 3 minutes to clear landing obstacles. He fought through France, Czechoslovakia, The Battle of the Bulge, he was captured, escaped then fought all the way through Germany. His Battalion was preparing to load onto troop Carrying Ships to be transported to the Pacific the very day the Japanese surrendered.
For that reason the history and battles of WW II have always interested me.
I personally do not care if 15mm is not as popular as 28 to 30mm, perhaps I can help increase its popularity locally. My understanding is that FoW has a growing audience.
Have to say you make some very good points. I am currently looking at FoW as my possible historical WW II game of choice.
I just ordered a bunch of the rulebooks and Intelligence Briefing Books to check out the system.
Once I have looked at the system I'll make my decision.
15mm Historicals miniatures seem to be more the choice of a lot of older Wargamers, Grognards etc. I myself am old by the standards of this Forum, perhaps not the oldest here but old enough.
My father served in WW II in the Combat Engineers, he landed on Omaha Beach at D-Day, H-hour plus 3 minutes to clear landing obstacles. He fought through France, Czechoslovakia, The Battle of the Bulge, he was captured, escaped then fought all the way through Germany. His Battalion was preparing to load onto troop Carrying Ships to be transported to the Pacific the very day the Japanese surrendered.
For that reason the history and battles of WW II have always interested me.
I personally do not care if 15mm is not as popular as 28 to 30mm, perhaps I can help increase its popularity locally. My understanding is that FoW has a growing audience.
Lieutenant Rasczak
Mongoose
CudaHP said:Soulmage,
Have to say you make some very good points. I am currently looking at FoW as my possible historical WW II game of choice.
I just ordered a bunch of the rulebooks and Intelligence Briefing Books to check out the system.
Once I have looked at the system I'll make my decision.
15mm Historicals miniatures seem to be more the choice of a lot of older Wargamers, Grognards etc. I myself am old by the standards of this Forum, perhaps not the oldest here but old enough.
My father served in WW II in the Combat Engineers, he landed on Omaha Beach at D-Day, H-hour plus 3 minutes to clear landing obstacles. He fought through France, Czechoslovakia, The Battle of the Bulge, he was captured, escaped then fought all the way through Germany. His Battalion was preparing to load onto troop Carrying Ships to be transported to the Pacific the very day the Japanese surrendered.
For that reason the history and battles of WW II have always interested me.
I personally do not care if 15mm is not as popular as 28 to 30mm, perhaps I can help increase its popularity locally. My understanding is that FoW has a growing audience.
My point was THATS why Mongoose has gone for 28mm scale, as opposed to any other.
Kristovich
Mongoose
I have alot of time and but somehoe painting my models escapes me :roll:
G'Day
Well I really do doubt whether 15mm is a dead scale (just google around and look) but I think Mongoose made a poor choice in miniature scale for BF:E. As I noted it doesn't really have to be 15mm, there are other scales that are popular in the 'modern' period. But 28mm is not a scale to field a even of modest forces of multiple AFVs, infantry and aircraft on and 'average' 6' x 4' table. A smaller scale does the job better, you get a better representation of figure scale verus the ground scale.
As I said, I don't imagine Mongoose turning around and dumping their large 28mm scale but I am interested to have the reasoning behind choosing that scale explained.
Cheers
Derek
Well I really do doubt whether 15mm is a dead scale (just google around and look) but I think Mongoose made a poor choice in miniature scale for BF:E. As I noted it doesn't really have to be 15mm, there are other scales that are popular in the 'modern' period. But 28mm is not a scale to field a even of modest forces of multiple AFVs, infantry and aircraft on and 'average' 6' x 4' table. A smaller scale does the job better, you get a better representation of figure scale verus the ground scale.
As I said, I don't imagine Mongoose turning around and dumping their large 28mm scale but I am interested to have the reasoning behind choosing that scale explained.
Cheers
Derek
Is the concern about scale to do with miniatures, or ruleset?
While there is nothing that can be done about the miniatures, it seems that the scale for the ruleset shouldn't be an issue. You should be able to just scale down for whatever you like. If you want to skirmish a bunch of your own 15mm soldiers, as is, the ranges now double. Or you could use centimeters(or half inches) as replacement for inches. Measurements are done from point to piont, so the size of the mini doesn't matter except for PBR. For PBR, you would need to scale for you mini scale either way.
While there is nothing that can be done about the miniatures, it seems that the scale for the ruleset shouldn't be an issue. You should be able to just scale down for whatever you like. If you want to skirmish a bunch of your own 15mm soldiers, as is, the ranges now double. Or you could use centimeters(or half inches) as replacement for inches. Measurements are done from point to piont, so the size of the mini doesn't matter except for PBR. For PBR, you would need to scale for you mini scale either way.
derek said:
I can think of a pretty simple explanation here.
More people play Warhammer than anything else, and are used to the 28mm(ish) scale. If you're going to target an audience, that's the one to target. 28mm is more likely to sell when someone walks into a store for their first ever miniatures game, because of the level of detail you can get on the infantry combined with them most likely having friends they that also play 28mm games.
While I wouldn't say other scales are dead, they are certainly relatively unpopular when you take the whole potential market into account. Personally I prefer 6mm but I know no company in their right mind would try and market anything at that scale in the hope of grabbing a large market share - it'll always be a specialist scale.
Couple that with BF Evo being written to be partially compatible with SST Evo, and you can't really do it at any other scale unless you're targetting it at the military enthusiast wargaming market rather than the general miniatures gaming market - and that cuts your potential customer base to a fraction of what it could be.
