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Big hobby companies seem to get proprietary not only with their rules, miniatures, components, but also their players. It annoys the hell out of me. Fact is, I don't owe them anything beyond the $$$ I paid for the product.
Regarding HotT, I have a very limited experience with it (and DBA) but if I recall correctly, it relies on "classes" it doesn't have specific profiles for different kind of troops with similar roles. i.e. a shooter is a shooter, be it a base of orcs with spears or elves with bows. I have to say that I'm not a big fan of this kind of game (armies feel too samey to me, and the ruleset feels overall "lazy"). Also, it's obviously easier to balance things if you have a handful of profiles, good for any army; so the comparison between HotT and WH seems a bit unfair to me.
When I wrote that "closed" games are usually more playtested and balanced I had in mind Warmachine, Malifaux and Infinity, games with an active publisher that puts efforts in keeping the game balanced for a healty tournament scene (with different degrees of success), more than GW (I have near zero experience with pre-AoS Warhammer). To the other hand, I was thinking about SBH regarding unbalance. When I pointed out to Andrea one balnce problem with point costs calculation he replied that point costs system is there just to provide a guideline, and that the game should be balanced by scenarios. Or Fistful of Lead, where the abilities you can pick for your team and models don't even try to be balanced. Game is balanced by it's multiplayer nature. Moreover, SBH and FoL are games that are focused in telling a story, more than in creating a balanced fight where one armchair general can prove to be smarter than his opponent. So in the end it's a very relative issue.
Regarding the "dullness" I could have be used an improper term? I don't mean they're dull to play. FoL is a great game and a very exciting one. I'm in the process of making a handful of ready-to-play warband to keep it ready to be played when there's the chance. Gaslands is like one of the most exciting games I played. Ever. The "dullness" (feel free to provide a more proper term, I will be grateful) to me is the lack of differentiation between the various armies, where in "closed" games they're usually more charachterized (they can have rules written exclusively for them).
Sometimes the setting is so characteristic (i.e Malifaux) that if you replace models it will spoil it.Don't misunderstand me: I'm a big fan of customization and love to see alt models, where their look and feel is appropriate. I also see no issue in WHF armies full of Greanadier models, but that was generic fantasy. If you're talking Warmachine, for example, I bet you'll hardly find similar models for most of the catalog. So we're speaking of playing a band of generic Orcs in place of Farrows (hog-men), something I'm not a fan of - unless you come out with some VERY awesome idea.
Would my opponent be happy to play a Flintloque game against my army of fantasy orcs? Just let's say they're savage Britocs.
Also, I would not be overly happy to play someone who is using Grenadier models to represent his PanO in Infinity, as model style and proportions are very different.
Moreover, in games like Malifaux, Infinity or Warmachine, where models have usually very specific rules and abilities, and one model can have multiple of them, using the "official" model is crucial to allow your opponent to instantly know what model is what (in games where remembering every ability on every model is already something people struggle with).
Would you like to have the goofy AoS orcs in a LotR game?.