Survey Results: Best and Worst miniature games
Galin
games. I would like to thank everyone for their participation. The survey
was given to both the miniature.warhammer newsgroup and the miniature.misc
newsgroup. Here are the results.
I will give the results of all the games mentioned, and then, at the end,
post the best and worst, along with reasonings behind those picked. The
numbers next to the name of the game system are the number of votes each
game system received, for both the best and worst of a given genre.
SCIENCE FICTION Best Worst
Battle Cattle 1 0
BattleTech 4 5
Car Wars 1 0
Dirtside II 3 0
Epic 40k 0 1
Full Thrust 5 0
Heavy Gear 2 0
Legions of Steel 2 0
Necromunda 1 0
Planetstorm 4 1
Rogue Trader 1 0
Shock Force 4 0
Silent Death 2 0
Space Fleet 0 2
Space Marine 1 0
Star Fleet Battles 0 1
Stargrunt II 3 0
Trinity: Battleground 2 2
Warhammer 40k 1 18
Warzone 8 1
FANTASY Best Worst
AD&D Battlesystem 1 0
Chronopia 11 0
Battle Masters 1 0
Battle Storm 3 1
Border Prince 0 1
Demonworld 0 1
Dragon Hordes 1 0
Dragon Lords 0 1
Fantasy Rules! 1st ed 2 1
Fantasy Rules! 2nd ed 5 0
Fantasy Warriors 2 0
Inferno 2 0
Leviathon 0 2
Raven 0 2
WH Siege 1st 1 0
WHammer Fantasy 1 16
WH Fantasy 2nd 1 0
WH Fantasy 3rd 1 0
HISTORICAL Best Worst
Armati 2 0
Battleground: WWII 1 0
Civil War: Bro vs. Bro 1 0
DBA 2 2
DBM 1 1
DBR 1 0
Empire Napoleonic 0 2
Fire and Fury 2 0
Fist Full of TOWS 1 0
Harpoon 0 1
In the Grand Manner 0 1
Johnny Reb III 2 0
Napoleon Battles 0 1
Once Upon a Time in the
Western Peninsula 1 0
Piquet ACW 1 0
Seekrieg 0 1
Soldiers of the Queen 1 0
Sword and the Flame 1 0
Tactica Medieval 3 0
Tank Charts 1 0
WH Ancient Battles 0 1
WRG 7th 0 1
WRG: De Bellis 1 0
THE BEST OF THE BEST
SCIENCE FICTION
Warzone: With only 1 vote against, this title seems to attract people with
it's rule system and decent, inexpensive miniatures.
"I enjoy Warzone's detail and variety of human factions."
"Played just after it was released and enjoyed it. Not all that thrilled
with some of the background (esp. Dark Legion stuff) but the core rules are
pretty solid and always gave a balanced interesting game."
"It has everything wrapped into one: Excellent background, great minis,
balanced armies, and is very low on the cheese. A system that makes sense,
and is one of the easiest (if not the easiest) in the market"
"...fast game play, easy to learn rules, & nice background."
"Great movement system and well done rulebooks."
"...it is extremely fun and has an excellent system that allows your force a
huge selection of tactical options...the force selection is extremely open
and varied and the prices make it possible to have a 500 point force from
four different armies...I bought a nice Sons of Rasputin force for around
$15.00 that is pretty insane."
"I really like that it is an affordable, easy system where each man on your
squad is important."
"Warzone: good rules, wretchedly bad minis." - voted worst Sci Fi Battle
game.
FANTASY
No contest. Chronopia wins hands down without a single bad review. Might
have to check this one out myself. Big kudos for more refined system than
Warzone and inexpensive, quality miniatures. It also doesn't degenerate into
Super-heros killing everyone else on the field.
"The Warzone engine at it's core is fast and sweet. "
"...Great background, great rules, great minis, almost no cheese - I love
it!"
"A rare treat. An actual dark world, good gameplay and excellent minis.
Cannot recommend it highly enough."
"...the background is really nice...the mechanics are even better than
Warzone, it seems, and it totally allows a great feel to fantasy that you
never get from Warhammer."
"Superb rules, no cheese, fine background, nice minis, fast to play and
still lots of tactics."
"It isn't perfect, and the rules are not organised very well, but it manages
to balance rank-and-file troops with "character" figures in a way that many
other games cannot. And I just love the miniatures."
"I have either read or played nearly every rule set produced in the past 20+
years, and Chronopia is the only one I can recall not wanting to re-write
major sections of..."
"Hands down, my favorite game of any genre. Incredible background, fantastic
system, plays like a dream."
"I really like the minis. Good background. Excellent departure from the
typical "fantasy" mold."
"Good rules, excellent minis."
"Like Warzone, but better. Cleaner. Lower cheese factor. Quick, easy,
affordable. Simply the best that I've played."
HISTORICAL
Close contest on this one, probably because historical gaming is probably
not as main stream as the other catagories. But is looks like Tactica
Medieval (or Medieval Tactica...saw it listed both ways) is the winner. Not
much in the way of explanations for this one, though.
"I love how it captures the feel of the battle diagrams you see in history
books."
THE WORST OF THE BAD
SCIENCE FICTION
Warhammer 40k: With only one vote for the best, this Games Workshop game
seems to have alienated people with over-priced miniatures, badly written
rules with many loop-holes, and Armies that incourage rampant cheesing to
win bringing about the name Hero-hammer 40k. The only things good mentioned
was the background and quality of the miniatures.
"...diluted Rogue Trader background and crappy rules full of loopholes."
"If the figs weren't so well sculpted and the fluff so funky, would ANYONE
really be playing this game? It requires so many house rules to play well,
you might as well make up your own game."
"Horrible, horrible system. Sure the background is fun, but the game is
unplayable."
"...because the rules actually encourage bad tactics, plus too many combos
and characters that are too powerful for the point cost (obviously geared to
sell more models)."
"Both games (BattleTech and WH40k) have their cheeseheads, both games are
totally illogical so you always have to use the rules or the system doesn't
run anymore."
"...nothing compares to the overall stupidity of the Warhammer 40k
universe."
"I've played some 40k and have only enjoyed it on one setting."
"Aside from the power gamer, "newest released miniature is the best" rules,
I abhor any game (company) that says you can't use other miniatures or their
dicontinued ones. Maybe it will be a better game when they borrow someone
elses game mechanics."
"My only reason is they are too expensive."
"Velveeta to the max. Unsupported races. Bad Karma."
"(Ha, Ha, Evil one. I have destroyed you with my Wankmaster 2000 super heavy
pistol ring. [retail price $175.00 comes with f ree magnifying glass]"
"Does anyone want some CHEESE?"
Interestingly enough, there were 3 opinions that stated simply enough "Worst
Science Fiction game: Warhammer 40K...'nuff said."
FANTASY
Warhammer Fantasy Battles: Games Workshop does it again. Though there are
some votes for WHFB as best game of the genre, they are mostly for earlier
editions. Reasons noted include the same reasoning as for Warhammer 40k:
Expensive miniatures, rampant cheesing, and rules with lots of loop-holes.
"Too goofy."
"Way too expensive, crappy rules, stupid background."
"I really think the Warhammer mechanics are totally broken. Are there ANY
tactics in this game? All the games I've been in or watched were wierd spell
and magic item fests with the ability to spot your charge range being
tantamount to victory :-). Very predictable...every tactics article I found
concentrated more on troop selection than actual battlefield happenings."
"No matter what army you play the secret to winning besides total magic-item
cheeseout is to accurately be able to guess charge distances and then make
sure your elite units get the charge...this is easlily executable simply by
taking sacrificial units that maneuver ahead of the "real" units and then
get the charge with the real units...you go first, you kill all, they flee,
panic ensues, etc."
"Once again characters as well as monsters are not only too powerful, they
are unbeatable using line troops. Infantry is practically moving scenery in
the game, and the release of the 5th edition set didn't even include generic
army list for any of the races."
"I just refuse to waste anymore time playing this."
"Not fun enough for how stupid it is."
"Whereas I dislike 40k, I hate Warhammer."
"...the whole character thing has to be toned down with house rules or
agreements between players of some sort."
"I'm not into omnipotent characters destroying unit after unit. It's about
out rolling your opponent, not tactics."
"My only reason is they are too expensive."
"...I'm telling my mummy on you, you killed my Wanktar Lord of Ego
Masturbation. I'm never ever ever letting you into my middle class parents
house again." (ed. What's he/she trying to say with this? :-P)
"They've turned this into a true piece of crap. Should be named "Warhero
Fantasy Battles". I hate the system, which is quite limited."
"I like the basic system, and I'm not afraid to admit it! Of course, I no
longer own any monsters, nor do I use a lot of magic..." - The one vote for
Warhammer Fantasy Battles.
HISTORICAL
It was a tie between Empire Napoleonic and DBA, but since DBA also received
2 votes for BEST HISTORICAL GAME, the winner for this catagory is Empire
Napoleonic. It seems the most common complaint was that the game was too
complicated.
"...most all napoleonic rule sets I've read seem WAY too complicated and
concerned with ultra-realism."
"I swear to God, you need a calculator to resolve each firefight/ melee.
"...who think that ultra-realism comes from ultra-complexity (especially at
the expense of playability.)"
"We tried, and tried, and tried...but the rules were so mixed-up and
incomprehensible. At a convention about 3 years ago, a fist fight almost
broke out between two 40 year olds who disagreed on the wording of several
rules. I love the Napoleonic era for mini gaming, but this system just isn't
it for our group."
Well, there you have it. I know this has been very educational for me (I've
only played Games Workshop stuff) and I am looking forward to trying out
Chronopia. If you have any comments or questions about the survey, I will
try to answer them as best I can.
Galin
Glynn & Kathy Greenwood
Galin <jlda...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> "...I'm telling my mummy on you, you killed my Wanktar Lord of Ego
> Masturbation. I'm never ever ever letting you into my middle class > parents
> house again." (ed. What's he/she trying to say with this? :-P)
its a mark of who are they're target customers
middle class insecure 11-15 year olds whose parents buy them the stuff to
shut them up.
ps does nobody read sigs! my name is elton (as in john) glyn & kathy
are the owners of the system. shessh!
TA TA
--
standard discliamers apply!
Rage agianst the dieing of the light
Elton (uk)
Galin
>> "...I'm telling my mummy on you, you killed my Wanktar Lord of Ego
>> Masturbation. I'm never ever ever letting you into my middle class
> parents
>> house again." (ed. What's he/she trying to say with this? :-P)
>
>middle class insecure 11-15 year olds whose parents buy them the stuff to
>shut them up.
>
>ps does nobody read sigs! my name is elton (as in john) glyn & kathy
>are the owners of the system. shessh!
>
>TA TA
>
put that retorical question and :-P in there to bring attention to your
quote, which I thought was witty and inspired. As for your sid, I thought
that the quote and your name, Elton, was a quote from an Elton John song (I
don't listen to him much). Didn't know it was your sid, so I looked at the
From column and thought that Glynn and Kathy was you. My apologies.
Galin
Klaus Herrmanns
>
> Here are the results of the survey for Best and Worst Miniature Battle
> games.
> FANTASY Best Worst
[snip]
> Demonworld 0 1
As a Demonworld fanboy ;) I just can't let this stand uncommented,
especially as I seem to remember that the contributor who listed DW as
his choice for worst Fantasy mentioned that this game was too similar to
WHFB.
I just can't see how that is true, as to me DW seems to avoid most, if
not all, of the weaknesses of GW games.
It doesn't have the oldfashioned Igo-Hugo turn structure. Instead, every
player gets to move/shoot/whatever with some units during each game
phase.
Each combat is resolved by a single die roll with modifiers, so no
buckets of dice, and no multiple rolls just to resolve a single attack.
Heroes are anything but unbeatable, because special items aren't so
important, point values are more balanced, and, most importantly, noone
can ever have more than two attacks per round. So there are no heroes
singlehandedly destroying whole regiments of infantry in no time at all.
The movement rules actually make regiments exactly that: regiments,
units that move best in simple rank-and-file formations and are severely
limited if they try anything but marching forward. DW really isn't a
skirmishing game (WHFB is one, although it claims not to be; Chronopia
sucessfully is one), but nicely fills the gap between the epic battle
rules (like FR!, HotT and the like) and skirmish games.
The rules are straightforward (at least to me, as someone with a
historical CoSim background) and in one single book. The price is way
below anything by GW.
And so on and so forth.
Sorry for the rant - I'll stop here and refer those who have never heard
about DW <shameless plug> to my DW gallery and review at
<http://www.tp3.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/~klaush/minis/>
</shameless plug>
Klaus
Michael Emminger
Klaus Herrmanns schrieb:
> Galin wrote:
> >
> > Here are the results of the survey for Best and Worst Miniature Battle
> > games.
I didn't say that the system was too close to WHFB - I ment the background.
Yeah the rules are better than WHFB (which ones are not?) but the game is
slllooooowww (At least when I played it) even slower than WHFB.
- Michael
Klaus Herrmanns
> Klaus Herrmanns schrieb:
>
> > Galin wrote:
> > [snip]
> > > FANTASY Best Worst
> > [snip]
> > > Demonworld 0 1
> >
> > As a Demonworld fanboy ;) I just can't let this stand uncommented,
> > especially as I seem to remember that the contributor who listed DW as
> > his choice for worst Fantasy mentioned that this game was too similar to
> > WHFB.
> >
> > I just can't see how that is true, as to me DW seems to avoid most, if
> > not all, of the weaknesses of GW games.
>
> I didn't say that the system was too close to WHFB - I ment the background.
>
> Yeah the rules are better than WHFB (which ones are not?) but the game is
> slllooooowww (At least when I played it) even slower than WHFB.
Oh, I'm sorry. I would concede that the DW background is a mix of
classical LotR and the WH world. But then I don't care about the
background much, to be honest (inventing color schemes for my armies
myself is part of the fun of painting for me).
And for lengthy play, well, I guess it depends on how well people know
the rules, and on how quickly they are willing to make decisions
(biggest problem with some of the people I game with).
The core rules may be a bit more detailed than in other games; on the
other hand they are very consistent, so there is relatively little time
wasted looking up obscure rules in the book, once you've grasped the
basics.
Probably the game does appeal more to people (like me) with a strong
historical interest and some background in more 'serious' boardgames. In
fact, I believe that if you simple leave out magic you're left with a
rather decent historical game, because the rules tend to reward
historical tactics and strategies (for the troups that have analogs in
real history, of course).
Klaus