Armchair Repairs:

I didn't write this someone said I could use it on the condition of anonononominimityism anyways it was their take on how BF could fix their current issues.

 We all would have Stratagems to Control and Counter the PSC (insert X-brand 15mm WWII mini manufacturer) superior points of difference, being AVAILABILITY, PRICE and QUALITY.


So currently the customer visible practices are:

- lockdown BF Tournament miniature usage

- suggest that BF-supported Tournaments do the same

- control the Gamer-2-Gamer & Web message by the BF Ranger program

- control the Local Game Store message as BF Dealers getting deals for promoting the brand

- expand BF-associated Tournaments in the US & UK/EUR

The things they need to do in addition is:

- make public statements and display how they are working on improving their Quality Control & Assurance,


- show how they practise their goals of providing a Quality Product


- Structure and Control their own damned infernal Supply Chain, it is a SHAMBLES.


- Win back their customers and potential customers worldwide by functional, real world, gamer friendly displays. eg, Website quiz to win Minis or limited edition clobber.


- Talk To Your Customers, don't just Tell Them What They Are Thinking. BF is terrible at this, they always state what their customers want. "I don't want to play against non BF minis, yo" - this is what a BF sales rep would say, who is not a customer. Easy to achieve with simple (and done in the past) web market research that you can then use to actually back up your position or change it when your customers show you their opinions. Have questionnaires at major stores, send them out with orders. Most importantly is follow the advice as it will make your product and brand better.


- Control your Message by allowing your supporters to provide positive examples of your good practice and superior brand. They cannot provide those examples without the company making the best choices for the customers. Make sure you have a company wide message that syncs your customers needs to your goals. Brands fail when they think they are bigger than their customers. People buy products they identify with as part of themselves.


- Provide options that allow their customers to gain a benefit from spending money on your product. eg Boxes actually provide discounts, distribution chain wide deals for 'spend x, get y'. This doesn't mean the RRP changes, this means the customer has incentives to buy your stock over the cheaper stuff sitting next to it or easily accessible online, straight to their door.


The saddest thing is that they could do all these properly, it is achievable even for a 'company of their size'. They need to make it a priority across the entire staff, every team.

Not just hot air, it needs to be parcelled out as process changes, mentality shifts and the realisation that if they continue forward they really will lose what made them a successful company with generous support from its customers.

The issue I believe is that they are largely ignoring the tough work and feeling busy enough doing the achievable work of supplying miniatures to dealers, building miniatures and having very high production issues with their products.

They are losing the PR war, if they haven't lost it already. A lot of their longest supporters are growing very weary and tired of the same issues and mistakes, becoming jokes to laugh off, then memes, then embarrassments.


There are still a lot of people who enjoy Flames of War and who want the system and Battlefront to do well. But to be mistaken for fervent supporters who can take any change and continue to provide the same brand loyalty is a very dangerous and arrogant assumption.

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Product Review Time

Hi again everyone! Who was that angry guy in July? Crazy anyways let  move onto some positvive happy stuff. Things that make our toys look awesome and can enhance our battlefield. I saw on Battlefronts site that they were releasing Chain, Barbed Wire (15mm & 28mm Scale) and Cable I found these 3 in Vagabonds in town today during lunch and thought they be just what I and you the reader needed.

First up Iron chain 1.5mm chain there's 2 meters of it so it'll last forever any self respecting Warmachine players going to want to pick up a set of these that and anyone who wants to or needs chain. A trick that can be done with chain is shaping it by super glueing individual links and hitting them with GF9 Rapid Cure having the chain set up in a dynamic pose.

Chain Fist



Next up is Barbed Wire (FOW) this is set up for flames of war and suits the theme the way of making more realistic looking barbed wire is time consuming and a little stabby it comes on the same spool however there is 8 meters of it (that's 400 yards in imperial probabally). Overall a handy product if you need to shore up some defences.

Finally we have Iron Cable 1.0mm once again it's 2 meters now I had to hold this in front of the mini as it has a tendancy to unreel itself. However this is braided cable great for tow cables on tanks and also power cording on robot death machine things. This product probablly won't be the most popular but it has it's uses.

If you like any of the products shown here be sure to use the Wayland Games link at the top of the page and get yourself a few sets.

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Kristen Stewart cheats on Robert Pattinson

Awww so sad that this happened.

 Actually no not really it took me a while to figure out who they were and by that time I had lost all interest and that leads us on to the month just ended and holy shit has it been a crazy one.

TL:DR: Daniel gets angry stays up late gets all ragey and makes lots of spelling mistakes.

I make no qualms about it Flames of War is my favourite miniatures games but when you do something really daft and release the below statement

The final change we are making is that from the new season all the events we run with will be only allowing Battlefront miniatures to be used. This is bound to cause some debate, so let me be clear as to why we have chosen to go down this path. Joe, Gareth and our events cost a great deal of money to run: a little over a quarter of a million American dollars this year alone. And, although it seems childish to draw a line in the sand and say, "If you want to play at our events and support the FOW hobby, you should not be bringing other people's models along," it is absolutely that simple. Our business is a business and we want Flames Of War to grow; we intend to give it the best support we can, but this support has a cost

Which created a clusterfuck shitstorm level 33 on the forums now with any Games Workshop, Privateer Press game you can do this because no one else can make an Adeptus Astartes Space Marine but anyone in the world can make a fucking 15mm Sherman.

Now although it's a dumb idea it only applies to their tournaments so all the other tournies are ok and for some unusual reason it was going to apply to New Zealand as well? Last time I checked Joe Krone didn't do anything here and spreading the tournaments around the country and having local clubs arrage it that's cool but who the heck missed out on Battlecry? It's only the biggest non-electronic wargaming event in the whole country!!!

One thing you can tell that this was a management idea ones who are disconnected from actual wargamers. Wargamers are tight bastards who spend 90% of their time trying to get blood out of a stone and to get them to only use your expensive toys when there are loads move alternatives out there some at a third the price is rediculous.

The other things I hate about corporate tools is when they lie this sentence  "we get quite a lot of people saying they don't enjoy playing against non battlefront miniatures" quoted by John Matthews BF CEO  USA I call bullshit the only thing I don't like about flames of war is losing and all the Steve's who play.

Who would go up to the CEO of a company say that. NOBODY! That's who in fact it would work the opposite

 "Oh hey these tanks are plastic they look really good" "Thank's they're Plastic Toy Soldier Company cost about half the price" "Wow I'll have to look into that" .

Fortunately for BF people power works and they did listen to reason and they released the below  statement however in the 3 days that it was the new rule they did more damage to their company then any price rise or rule change could've. If they'd had stayed the course I'm almost certain 2013 would've been BF's last year.


Battlefront Official Events Update

In all the years we have been in business we have had an open and honest policy about listening to our gamers and genuinely taking their views on board to the extent of sometimes changing our plans. We apologise for the confusion and angst our announcement has caused as it was never our intention. We did not see this change as a big problem as we were simply formalising something we already thought was existing practise, albeit informally.

In the interests of compromise and fairness to everybody’s opinion we will change the word “all” to “majority” (meaning over half) in the tournament rules for the 2013 season. Although we were not clear enough about this last week we did not consider die cast planes, scratch built models or objectives (assuming they are the right size), terrain or models we do not currently make to be covered by this. As is always the case, if you are unsure simply get in touch with your tournament organiser and clarify the situation but we are going to revert to the best option in all cases, common sense.

The new season rules take effect from the masters in December this year and only apply to the officially run Battlefront tournaments listed on our site. Independent tournaments are free to choose their own system, as they always have been.

One of the feedback ideas that did come back from our weekend conversations that we really liked was to also further reward people who came along with 100% Battlefront armies. This is an idea that we will definitely work on for the future.

We are committed to supporting and growing the Flames Of War hobby and want to invest more in the future, in events, the website and programs like the Rangers all of which we are happy to spend money on to provide this to you for free.

We want to thank our moderators for doing such a sterling job this weekend especially given they had no warning at all. We appreciate all the civil comments whether for or against. We feel that our compromise shows that we believed all views have merit. We hope this once again proves that we do listen."

~ Pete, John & John-Paul.

Never underestimate the power of the enraged wargamer and never ever make statements unless you are prepared to back them up stats. Next week I'll post up some pictures of kittens or something :P

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Warhammer 40K Rulebook

So I hear all this noise about the above book mostly it's NZ price tag of $146 to which would be justified if it came in a box filled with toys but it doesn't. I thought I've give 40K another chance I haven't played a game since the 1998.

This was going to be like seeing that good friend you hadn't seen since high school sure he'd gotten more corporate and and wasn't as fun anymore but hey it was still him. As a wargamer it is my solem right not to pay full price and I didn't I wandered into the new Vagabonds located out the back of the building I work in and paid $99 for it a "bargin" so they tell me.

I thought to myself this is a hefty tome full of rules and handy diagrams but alas twas not to be 432 pages long 131 of them are rules the rest is fluff and pictures of toys I guess Games Workshop needs to get new blood into the hobby so 300 pages of stories and pretty pictures might do it.

I read the rules in a night with my friend Damian advising me on what meant what and what changed since the last version and crazy stuff I hadn't heard about (I played Version 3 only). It's a very straight forward move, shoot, assault game as it always was.

Dare I paint an army???

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Rubber Shoes in Motion

Here is my test mini for a Khador army I'm working on. The head and arms are all magnatised so that once painted I can load out the 3 different Khador Jack options as they are all based on a standard chassis.

The paint job only took about 5 hours in total. Originally I had airbrushed it with Tamiya Red and then added German Grey to the mix although the red tones where nice I wasn't happy so I decided I want to a winter wash Khador the kind that's been in the field for 3 months and things are just plain muck and rust.

After the now dull red was applied I ran some hairspray through my airbrush and sprinkled salt over the parts I wanted to remove. Painted it white and removed the salt as per the below videos and used Vallejo and some Mig weathering pigments to enhance the worn rusty and the base was made with the soon to be released 28mm Hero Basing kit, KingDans Snow and KingDans Just Sand. I hope these videos help you out. As usual support Wayland games using the link above and don't forget about the chair fund it has a total of zero dollars so far and I may soon be forced to purchase my own :(

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"He hath borne me on his back a thousand times"

It's a sad time when a man loses something he's known loger than most of his friends but today on Satuday, June 16 my chair finally decided to die. I had owned this chair since 2003 and it had seen me though the best of times and the worst of times and now he is dead. I'm reminded of a line from Hamlet..

"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now?"

Anyways this puts me at a conundrum I could go out an buy a cheap chair and go through them like some sort of chairslut or I could wait this would mean I'd have a hell of a time painting,blogging and videogaming. So I have set up a donation box in the top right you don't have to donate much or at all but if enough people do I can get a new chair and any left over from donations I'll donate to my local SPCA.

Thanks
Daniel "IAINTGOTNOCHAIR' Linder

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Your hobby dollars? (make coffee before reading)

Hi everyone,

In these tough economic times it's hard to pick and choose it's not  2007 anymore  and we can longer justify purchasing pretty much everything and anything, going from being paid $4,000 a month to $2,800 a month doesn't help either, so what I'm going to do here is help you ,the reader, by directing you in the best way to spend your hobby dollar.

First things first you've got to be open minded this isn't Games Workshop there are loads of other games out there and you no longer have to drop $18 for 100g of sand (totally true) instead of debating alternatives here we're going to look at what you can get for $200NZD in each different system. We will assume you brought the rules a few months back and already have all your modelling supplies so now it's toy soldier time!

http://www.flamesofwar.com
Flames of War 1:100 World War II Miniatures game with a focus on Africa, The Mediterranean and Europe with an Early War 1939-41, Mid War 1942-43 and Late War option 1944-45. Lets select a 1500 point Mid War list and consult our budget.

Ok here we have a bog standard German Grenadier Infantry list

Company HQ                     $17.00
Grenadier Platoon              $34.00
Grenadier Platoon              $34.00   
HMG Platoon                     $17.00
3x Panzer IIIN Tanks         $51.00 
2x StuG F/8 Assault Guns  $34.00 
Priority Stukas JU-87G      $25.00

Total $212, $12 over budget however planes don't always need to be represented. Flames of War is the third most popular gaming system in the World after Warhammer 40K and Warhammer Fantasy it shouldn't be too hard to find a player near you.

http://wyrd-games.net/
Malifaux is a 32mm Heroic Scale Steampunk, Victorian, Horror Skirmish game meaning it's cheap to get into another strange thing about it is that it uses a card based fate deck to twist or even cheat fate. The different factions in this operate in Crews the points of a game are measured in Soulstones so lets go build a 25 point Soul Stone List.

For this I'm going to go with my list that I took to Battlecry

Witch hunters
Sonia Criid
Purifiying Flame 2 points
3 x Witchling Stalkers 12 points
Samael Hopkins 8 Points

This leaves me with 3 extra Soulstones in my cache to help me cheat fate etc as for price well each faction has a starter box

This works out to about $40NZD at current exchange rates and the Purifiying Flame is about $9NZD so you and 3 other friends could easily get started for that $200 budget or you could have 4 Starter sets. Good looking miniatures and and easy to follow ruleset also help out alot.

http://privateerpress.com/

Warmachine is a very fast growing 28mm scale steampunk/magic miniautres game and one of the very few American wargames that's actually working. It combines infantry and Steam and magic powered robots (known as Jacks) and Beasts for the Hordes part of it both fighting to kill the opposing teams caster like Chess once your caster's dead that's game.

 It works similar to most dice games walk forward, murder people however the Jacks and Beasts need orders so you have Focus and Fury both work very differently. Jacks get allocated Focus by your Warcaster and Beasts generate Fury by doing things I've heard it discribed as risk management versus resource management anyways lets build a 25 point starter list that seems to be a good start

Lets go with Khador they're red and they seem grumpy

The Butcher of Khardov $22.05

Decimator $45.40

Destroyer $45.40
War dog $13.00
Man-o-war Demolition Corps (Leader and 2 Grunts) $58.40 (this is a box of 5)
Winter Guard Rifle Corps (Leader and 9 Grunts) $65.00

Total $249.25 ok so that's well over budget so you might want to purchase it in parts I'm going to pop over to Wayland games and just do a comparison $223.81 not a bad saving their link is at the top on this blog.

http://www.spartangames.co.uk/

I lumped Dystopian Wars & Firestorm Armarda togerther as they're both played in a very similar fashion albeit one is a futuristic Sci-Fi Space ship game and Dystopian Wars is a Victorian Steam-punk Air, land and sea game. The miniatures are made of high quality resin and the game play is an I go you go system with an exploding dice component, roll 6's, it's good fun once you've figured it all out.

Ok lets see what we can get for our budget I'm not sure how points should work but I've been told one box contains everything you need to get started.

So $65.27nzd not a bad outlay for so much stuff and when was the last time you got 9 of anything for that price so at this price I could get the above and still have coin enough to get this

At $73.85nzd it's a bit more expensive however the ships are even bigger than Battlefleet Gothics ships and the Space battleship is twice as long as the Dystopian counterpart. So far that's $139.12 that leaves us $60 to spend on enhancing our fleets with carriers, submarines and other assorted toys. I always go with what looks cool rather than what is good according to the masses.

http://infinitythegame.com/

I copied this from their website.

"Infinity is a game with 28mm high metal miniatures that simulates combat and special operations in a science fiction environment with Manga aesthetics. Infinity miniatures are characterized by the high quality and detail of their modeling, the dynamism of their postures and their futuristic aesthetic"

I tell you what their minis are real nice however some of them have that Manga look and well I personally can't stand it. The game itself is a reactionary D20 game it has a very steep learning curve but once you're onto it the game plays smoothly when I played it I took a few heavily armoured troops and thought I was unstoppable unfortunately unfortunately snipers can still kill you no matter what you wear. One other thing I neglected to mention is this game relies on terrain and lots of it almost a Necromunda amount which helps with cover and consealment but the better player will always overcome this. Lets price it out anyways so once again I've gone for a box set due to it being a skirmish game it shouldn't set you back too much.

The above is a nice looking set of toys that'll cost you about $54.00 which is very cheap for such high quality minis when you compare it to 5 Space Marines for $48.00 from Games Workshop it comes up tumphs. You can start adding things to this like snipers, heavy weapons and ummm well what look like warewolves for these guys everyone else just has big robots.


So there you have it these are what I think about these selected games and I'll write more reviews in future if you want to send me something to be reviewed please contact me via email or leave a message in the comments below.

Thanks for reading
-Daniel

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