Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Age of Myths, Gods and Empires => Topic started by: Aesthete on March 01, 2008, 01:27:33 AM
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Went to Chapters last night (a big box book store, part of the Borders chain in the US) and was surprised to discover a newly released set of miniature table top wargame rules. Fields of Glory Never heard of it before. Looks like it's a joint production of Osprey and Slitherine (PC Game Developer). Great production values and the system seems solid on my first read.
Initially they're covering Republican Rome and Late Medieval eras (supplements are already out). They have supplements for the Crusades, Byzantine Empire, the Ottomans and Imperial Rome in the pipeline (which covers until October 2008) and apparently more's coming later,
Here's the link: http://www.fieldofglory.com/
Furthermore, it looks like they're co-operating with a minis developer as well to produce reasonably priced 28mm (1:56) scale plastic minis. I think they're looking at a box of 48 foot for $30 or so.
Their website is here: http://www.wargamesfactory.com/Home.htm
Still looks like it's early in development, but they do have a few pictures up of what they are developing (they're apparently starting with Late Romans (Caesar) and Celts):
(http://www.wargamesfactory.com/Images/legionary_stabbing.jpg)
(http://www.wargamesfactory.com/Images/Centurion.jpg)
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Went to Chapters last night (a big box book store, part of the Borders chain in the US) and was surprised to discover a newly released set of miniature table top wargame rules. Fields of Glory Never heard of it before.
FoG is one of the top themes on miniature-related www-boards this year.
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From what I understand, North Star are to carry the Wargames Factory range in the UK.
I'm going to pick up a box of their Celts, should be perfect for all sorts of stuff.
What I'm really looking forward to from them is the Crusades in plastic.
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From what I understand, North Star are to carry the Wargames Factory range in the UK.
I'm going to pick up a box of their Celts, should be perfect for all sorts of stuff.
What I'm really looking forward to from them is the Crusades in plastic.
Is that a definate range Rev? I just picked up a load of Moors form a swap with a mate and now may hang on buying too much more if they release Plastics
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Is that a definate range Rev? I just picked up a load of Moors form a swap with a mate and now may hang on buying too much more if they release Plastics
I've not heard it confirmed anywhere.
But, it's the next period covered by Field of Glory, if they are the official minis people for Field of Glory, then it makes sense.
I'm just extrapolating.
Also wishing. :) :)
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Fields of Glory has gone mental over at TMP. Seems that lately every other thread seems to be about it (and the cynic in me has been wondering how many of these are by genuine potential customers, and how many have been 'planted'). Everyone seems to be rushing to buy it without knowing the first thing about it, too.
Frankly I'm baffled. The hype sure seems to be working, as gamers are charging headlong at it like lemmings at a cliff. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a beef with the game (I know almost nothing about it), I just can't remember seeing this kind of behavior happen before. Maybe it happened with Flames of War, but if it did I didn't notice at the time.
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Fields of Glory has gone mental over at TMP. Seems that lately every other thread seems to be about it (and the cynic in me has been wondering how many of these are by genuine potential customers, and how many have been 'planted'). Everyone seems to be rushing to buy it without knowing the first thing about it, too.
Frankly I'm baffled. The hype sure seems to be working, as gamers are charging headlong at it like lemmings at a cliff. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a beef with the game (I know almost nothing about it), I just can't remember seeing this kind of behavior happen before. Maybe it happened with Flames of War, but if it did I didn't notice at the time.
I agree Poly yeo the hype has certainly been contageous I do think there were one hell of a lot odf sock puppets on TMP probably form the play testers etc, very well done too all credit to them.
FOW was the same when it was released, I went to my club a coulpe of years ago after the Sheffield show and no less than 6 guys had bought into FOW :o not only that be they also bought all the sanctioned minitures and it wasnt until they started playing that they relasied it was Epic Space marine re-hashed and tweaked that it started to die the death of all fads I still see one or two games a month but not the hordes of little diddy tanks lined up as if on parade going across the table.
There are others that get pushed, THW, WAB etc from fans and publishers alike. I think Fields of Glory has had that extra push because it is rumoured to be a cross between WAB and DBXXXXX so attracts both audiences and the Osprey link promises plenty of eye candy. They have also beaten WAB with all the supplements being released quickly so you can get your fix and they are glossy not like DBXXXX home made publications.
Finally the War Factory pushing their figures off the back of this also gives another interesting lure.
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Fields of Glory has gone mental over at TMP. Seems that lately every other thread seems to be about it (and the cynic in me has been wondering how many of these are by genuine potential customers, and how many have been 'planted'). Everyone seems to be rushing to buy it without knowing the first thing about it, too.
A spot of astroturfing shenanigans eh?
To be honest I'm mostly interested in the models, I've got a copy of WAB I've hardly ever played as it's tricky to get our local gamers to buy into an expensive game.
The expensive part being big units of ranked up models.
Good quality, fairly priced plastics like these and the stuff the Perry Miniatures are working on solve this issue.
Also the Celts sound perfect for Broadsword Adventure type games, so I'm keen to see them.
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"Everyone seems to be rushing to buy it without knowing the first thing about it, too. "
I think there are three things driving it:
1)It's from Osprey. I have a feeling historical wargames would be a much smaller market if not for Osprey spoon feeding information to large portions of the gaming market. So they've got branding going for them.
2)People like their Romans like they like their Nazis only without the guilt trip.
But mostly I think it's: 3) OMG!1!!!1 CHEeP Minitur3s!!!1!!! I go to fleamarkets at cons too, but I don't pretend that less than a buck a figure is good for anybody but the buyer. There's seems to be a core of pennypinching to the hobby overall that I find kinda disturbing for several reasons.
I expect some manufacturers are going to really feel this game and especially it's figures coming this con season.
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A spot of astroturfing shenanigans eh?
Or just a lot of people wanting to talk about the game. No reason to assume that they are all planted topics.
Besides, the only topics I see about it on TMP are people complaining about all the hype :-)
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I think there are three things driving it:
1)It's from Osprey. I have a feeling historical wargames would be a much smaller market if not for Osprey spoon feeding information to large portions of the gaming market. So they've got branding going for them.
2)People like their Romans like they like their Nazis only without the guilt trip.
:lol: Spot on, on both counts, I am sure.
Very penetrating insights. Keep 'em coming... :wink:
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Went to Chapters last night (a big box book store, part of the Borders chain in the US) and was surprised to discover a newly released set of miniature table top wargame rules. Fields of Glory Never heard of it before.
FoG is one of the top themes on miniature-related www-boards this year.
Hahahaha... well I just started hanging out on miniture related boards. In fact, Lead Adventure Forum is the first one I signed up to. So for me this whole thing came like lightning from a blue sky. I've gotten all my info on stuff from browsing retailer sites, going to gaming stores and... well... that's it.
But yeah, I've discovered that I'm probably the only person who was taken by surprise by this whole thing.
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For my part, I'm a sucker for hype, and Osprey is a brand that I recognize and respect. Whether the game's any good I can't say as of yet (nor will I claim to be particularly discerning on the matter). As for the minis, right now it seems I'm starting a hard core mini-loving phase so pretty much everything I haven't seen before that's decent quality gets me stoked.
Certainly, I think another well backed vendor producing quality, attractive product is a good thing in and off itself.
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Well quite. I didn't mean to come across as negative about the whole thing, to be honest I would catergorize myself more as neutral towards it, as Ancients gaming is something that I am really not into at the moment. I was just a bit surprised by just how much buzz seemed to be flying around about the whole thing.
Perhaps it is too cynical of me to ascribe it all to sock-puppetry, but I was only having these thoughts because I had truly never seen so many topics about a new game on one forum in so short a time.
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Maybe the popularity is people on the bounce from WAB ?
I looked at WAB, but it didn't really appeal to me (although we seem to have all the books), we still play WRG 4th edition, so want a ruleset that caters for big armies... amongst other things I was eccentric enough to collect a Macedonian phalanx of 240 figures, so big armies are quite big.
In the meantime we've shifted over to 15mm, which allows us to field an Egyptian army with 50 chariots....
We've just seen the new "Impetus" rules from Dadi & Piombo, so maybe this year we'll find a workable new rules set.
http://www.dadiepiombo.com/basic2.html
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The miniature tie-in is definitely interesting. As someone on TMP has pointed out (and been flamed for) the technology they are claiming to be using for their minis has not been worked out yet. A friend of a friend sculpts plastics for the toy industry and has said that the "greens" (actually just computer renderings) they keep showing can not be made with the current technology unless they have developed something entirely new.
I hope they live up to the hype, as those Roman renderings look quite nice.
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The miniature tie-in is definitely interesting. As someone on TMP has pointed out (and been flamed for) the technology they are claiming to be using for their minis has not been worked out yet. A friend of a friend sculpts plastics for the toy industry and has said that the "greens" (actually just computer renderings) they keep showing can not be made with the current technology unless they have developed something entirely new.
I hope they live up to the hype, as those Roman renderings look quite nice.
They don't look that technically different to the stuff GW produces, multi part hard plastics.
But then again I didn't even realise these were computer generated images I was looking at so that shows you what I know. :)
What is their new special thing?
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Having chainmail that goes all around the fig is supposed to be hard to impossible as the steel mold doesn't flex to allow the plastic to be released once molded. GW get around this by having capes or something similar in the problem areas.
I've also been told that the digital-green-to-steel-mold process works well for things with a lot of straight lines like vehicles and terrain, but not well at all for organic shapes.
While I know some industry people, I have zero experience in plastics myself, so this is all just hearsay on my part. I hope the sceptics are all wrong and I can have tone of plastic legionaires soon!
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The chainmail issue has been discussed at length in plastic casting. I don't think WF has released anything yet and I hope to actually speak with them at Cold Wars this weekend.
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Please keep us posted. I confess I prefer good old-fashioned lead, but cheap plastics can only help bring in fresh blood. It will also be considerably cheaper to let my son paint and break plastics when he is old enough to cut his teeth in the gaming world!
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Having chainmail that goes all around the fig is supposed to be hard to impossible as the steel mold doesn't flex to allow the plastic to be released once molded. GW get around this by having capes or something similar in the problem areas.
I hadn't considered that before, that's very cunning of them. It explains why mould lines on GW figs usually run down the scabbard.
Also, because I think I'm still being a bit slow on the uptake, the pics that looks to me like they are greyscale photos of sculpts, those are some kind of computer wizardry? They look so real.
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Those are 3D software images.
I was lucky enough to see the first pass on these. They have improved greatly since then (my initial description of them was "a hairless gorilla in armor"). :D
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Yup, they are just virtual renderings. I never would have caught on to that myself if the WF guy hadn't disclosed it in one of his many "news" releases.
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Wow, I'd never have guessed that. :)
Crazy place this 21st Century.
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The same people are stampeding towards these rules as stampeded towards WHFB when it was released. WHFB was supposed to be so great, presumably because it had colour photos since Warhammer Rules are distinctly average-to-godawful and couldn't possibly be a selling point to grown ups.
These rules have even more colour photos and almost before release the requisite 'army books' have arrived to leech yet more cash from the faithful. No doubt the rules will be very successful.
I can't help feeling that certain people's need to like them (sight unseen) stems from the fact that they're not happy playing ancients and desperately need to find something that makes it fun.
Ancients aren't dull because of the rules of course, but because ancient warfare is a dull thing to play. Line up and throw sticks before charging (ooooh Warhamer!) doesn't make it worth painting the figures and getting the trees out of the box as far as I'm concerned.
Some people will never learn though :)
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@ Matakishi:
:) You just summed up my thoughts on ancients pretty well. As nice as some figures are I just can't think of any ancient period I'd want to game. And I'm tryin' real hard, truly I am. XD
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Ancients aren't dull because of the rules of course, but because ancient warfare is a dull thing to play.
I hear you. I find ancients quite interesting, but the actual game play is a bit lacking.
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Ancients are a mixed bag for me. I really enjoy the first and second Punic wars as there is a clash of very different fighting philosophies and a wide variety of troop types. I once made the mistake though of assembling two large matched hoplite armies as I love the look of them. Unfortunately they were dead boring to game with. It wasn't even rock, paper, scissors. It was just plain rock on rock!
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They have a very interesting article on their site about how they are solving design problems like that side chain mail casting mentioned before :
http://www.wargamesfactory.com/AnnouncementRetrieve.aspx?ID=13361
I am not sure of what they will be able to do, but at least they seem to know their job.
I guess that if figures are good, I will buy several boxes, even if I don't ply ancients anymore. At least not massive battles, I'm still looking for a good skirmish ancient ruleset.
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Where can the game be purchased? Osprey?
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I believe so. My latest Osprey email newsletter lists one of the army list books as an upcoming release in with the standard fare.
In fact, according to the email you should be able to get it (and all other Ospreys) for 30% off until 26 March by entering 8EGG in the promotional code box. Shipping is free to the US, UK, and Canada if you order three or more books. The only restriction seems to be that they must be in stock at the time of ordering.
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It's in the shops...hobby stores and non-hobby bookstores, too. Looks quite good. Plenty of colour photos, nice layout...but the scale's all wrong for me so I think I'll pass.
Went to Chapters last night (a big box book store, part of the Borders chain in the US)
Chapters & Borders are not affiliated...yet. Read a rumour that suggested Chapters/Indigo would be buying into Borders but nothing doing as yet.