Kickstarter projects

So Veeky Forums, let me ask you. Is there an audience for a cheaper alternative to wargames? I understand that for many, building and painting an army, acquiring them over time is a good bit of the fun. And playing in long, drawn out games is the point of the genre. But do you think a new game could do well if built on a foundation away from pricey miniatures? Something expandable of course, with a good system and gameplay to hold it up, but played with plastic and cardboard pieces. Is there enough interest to make a project like that viable?

>but played with plastic and cardboard pieces.

Plenty of historicals are played like that, its not a succesful business because you can just print those shit out since its just cardboard.

Thanks, thats a good point actually. Would it help if the game encouraged that? Maybe the webstore has even cheaper PDFs you can buy if thats your thing, or if you just wanted to try it out. But I was planning on the game having a unique dice system, so you'd have to get the base set at some point.

Cardboard? Who is making this game?

No company would want to do this, because they wouldn't make a profit. With advances in pre painting and modelling, more pre painted and assembled ready to go wargames might be a thing.

But cardboard? The cheap bastard gamers aren't a market. The feitishisation of production values continues because cardboard looks like shit, and often it's not that much more expensive to have minis.

Not cardboard exactly, more like laminated and pre-painted plasti-card chits. The inherit value of which is that you can fit many more units in a box than you can with plastic figures.

I guess the real question is, If people who don't play wargames because they are intimidated by the entry cost and time investment, still have the interest to do so, would a game catered to that scenario have a big enough following to be successful?

Miniatures aren't even that expensive. There's a reason the price has settled where it currently is: lower prices simply aren't feasible for the quality most customers desire.

No because your target demographic has not enough income to purchase your shit, at best you'd be making a boardgame for those people and not a wargame.

Besides if youre poor and want to wargame theres a ton of games that use cardboard pieces, I've seen a ton of historicals played that way.

I think OP is referring to people who have some disposable income, but not the hundreds of dollars required to get into WH40k. For example, Star Wars: X Wing has reasonably priced pre-painted minis, and you can get a decent game going for $100. Not $100 per person, but $100 total.

I do love me some X-wing, but yeah a similar position on a larger scale.

Like other anons have pointed out money should not be the issue since the price difference won't be so big but I think they're ignoring the people who doesn't like to paint minis or doesn't have the time to do so but that people simply buys prepainted minis.

I could get behind your game because I don't have a fetish for modeling but I still can print cardboard cut out by myself to play.

Maybe you could target your game to children as an accessible first wargame

Tabletop Simulator is cheaper and easier.

It would be simple enough.

>Tabletop Simulator
That seems to be a computer game, I'm shooting for something people can get together and play in person.

>cheaper alternative to wargames
>expandable
>played with plastic and cardboard pieces

So a board game?

Technically, it might be labeled like that. But the goal is that it plays like a wargame. People buy as much as they need, like a wargame. And use point-buy to customize their force for a variety of scenarios. Really it would be a hybrid-genre game.

>Technically, it might be labeled like that. But the goal is that it plays like a wargame. People buy as much as they need, like a wargame. And use point-buy to customize their force for a variety of scenarios. Really it would be a hybrid-genre game.

How would you differentiate this from say, Battleground Fantasy Warfare? This is a fantasy wargame where a playing card represents a regiment of troops.

>long, drawn out games
>pricey models
Companies that aren't GW exist, you know

So Memoir 44?

>Is there an audience for a cheaper alternative to wargames?

Yes, board gamers.

>But do you think a new game could do well if built on a foundation away from pricey miniatures? Something expandable of course, with a good system and gameplay to hold it up, but played with plastic and cardboard pieces. Is there enough interest to make a project like that viable?

Yes, it's called Battlelore. It'ss cheaper ($80 for two armies + terrain), it's expandable, it had good gameplay, it's played with plastic and cardboard pieces. It's very viable as tons of people love it.

Here's what it looks like with painted miniatures.

Would such a project require Kickstarter?

I dunno if it's still in vogue, but I remember a time, a few years ago, when people would sell downloadable PDFs that have the rules for their games.

Obviously, the advantage here is the low cost. It would mostly be a matter of your investment in terms of development time.

As for the wargaming community... well, you'd be targeting a different demographic. Not really the wargamers, but probably closer to the boardgamers.

Never played it myself, but Battleground Fantasy Warfare seems to tick all the boxes. Not exactly sure how popular it is though.

Isn't that just a variation of the Memoir 44 and Command and Colours gameplay though?

Two games which I'd argue to be better, although in the case of Command and Colours in no way cheaper.

60 fucking quid for some card, a rulebook some bits of wood and stickers and a board? Fuck me somebodies got a good thing going. GMT Games must be making out like gangbusters there.