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Is HotT still in print?
Hi GrubmanYou wrote that " When WFB died...it really took mass battles with it ". Well, let me disagree. If it (WBF) is dead, by the will of its creator, this does not mean that the fantasy wargame is dead too. For many years all over the world players have continued to play Fantasy Warriors, even after the closure before the Grenadier and then the Stratelibri. But from the 2004 there is MIRLITON that continues to distribute it ...... for free!We, Naran Team Torino, in Italy, and the Frothers group in Great Britain have helped to keep alive the interest in the beautiful wargame which is Fantasy Warriors, according to many much better than WFB. As far as we are concerned, in the year 2000 (eighteen years ago!) We had expanded Fantasy Warriors with the addition of new armies based essentially on GW miniatures: Lizardmen, Rat Men, Warriors and Chaos Creatures , etc. And then we extended the armies to allow us to use other miniatures produced by many other companies: Crocodile and Mantic, to name just two, but also Reaper and many others, including those that produce historical miniatures (Aventine, Victrix, Black Tree, and other). In total, more than 60 Fantasy Warriors armies are managed by us: http://www.naran.it/naran/International/fantasy/armies/a00_armies_page.htmWe are now working on the FIFTH edition and have already released several new army lists. The previous edition were: 2000 - 2004 - 2007-2008 - 2012.So, for us, the "fantasy wargame" is alive and well, and it survives very well without WFB.Cheers,Naran Team Turinhttp://www.naran.it/naran/
I'm the UK at least there seems to be a healthy KoW community and plenty of tournaments for those who like that sort of thing. Mantic support it well and it adequately fills the WHFB hole.
In any case. When WFB died...it really took mass battles with it. We now live in the age of the “skirmish” game. People want to buy and paint a handful of miniatures and play. They want a shinny new rulebooks, and monthly supplements...and they want to turn around and do it all over again a year later with the newest shiny new thing that comes out.
“Dead” isn’t really meant to be taken exactly literally. When it comes to games, nothing is ever totally dead, as there will always be pockets of gamers and isolated groups still joyfully playing the games they love.[omissis][Edit] And no insult to FW, but I’ve never seen anyone play it at a game store, of the multitude of conventions I’ve been at. My old FLGS had one copy of the boxed set for sale next to WFB 4th edition...then still sitting next to boxes of 5th edition, and finally opened to sell the miniatures while discarding the rest of the box (I know, because the owner was a “friend” of mine and sold me the miniatures for 50 cents apiece).
Yep, from what I can tell from online friends, the UK is always better when it comes to miniature game diversity, than the states (try to find a HotT group in the states, ha ha). I though KoW would capture the old WFB crowd, but it doesn’t seem to have gained too much steam. Shiny new Skirmish games with lots of flash, gimmicks, and bells and whistles are all the rage everywhere I go.
I remember reading something that suggested that one of the motivating factors behind GW finishing up with WHFB was that poor sales, particularly in North America, was the real death knell. Seems like fantasy just isn't that big a deal over there.Maybe Saga:Age of Fantasy, Oathmark or Fantasy Hail Caesar will get more love, but I suspect you are in a minority!
I remember reading something that suggested that one of the motivating factors behind GW finishing up with WHFB was that poor sales, particularly in North America, was the real death knell. Seems like fantasy just isn't that big a deal over there.
There used to be an American set by a firm called Chipco that were pretty good, although I haven't played them for a while