[unofficial weekender] Quo vadis hobby

[sundancer 44478xp 1]

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First time visitor to OTT? Then please introduce yourself in the New Member Thread and look around in the Project System. Then come back and read on…

https://www.ontabletop.com/forums/topic/introduce-yourselves-new-member-thread/

https://www.ontabletop.com/project/

Read all of this before you start as it will save you any trouble later.

First thing you must do is make your “pledge”. It can be anything gaming related, big or small, and you don’t even have to finish it. No, in here, happiness is the road. Have fun doing whatever it is, but it is not a race. Accompany your work with pictures or we might think you are do something sinister and just using us for cover.

You are also presented with a few questions. It is to get the conversation started. Try and keep your answers ‘conversational’, no text speak, and certainly no “basically”. This is how we all get to know each other better. While you are here feel free to tell us a story, show a picture, joke, tales of love or woe, or just add your own little bit. This is the whole point…in here it is just us.

If you have never taken part before we may bark and bite, but we also like a cuddle! It is all done in the best possible taste and it is character building. feel free to give as good as you get.

A few other things to note: NO RELIGION & NO POLITICS! Glasgow pub rules are in effect. If you need to make a better point then it is fine, but don’t take the piss. And always keep it civil. This includes no philosophy, no home computer culture wars.

Play plenty of music to go with your work. Loud and through proper speakers. Write us a playlist of things we might not have heard before.

Now, after all of that there is only one ‘real’ rule in here and it cannot be broken: NO DICKS! (Exceptions may be made for little fighting men with little plastic/resin/metal wieners)

And don’t forget the highlights of the weekend: The Weekender on Friday and XLBS on Sunday. And the little show that is The Hobby Hangout over at twitch.tv

If you fancy to see some nice WIP pictures go to the WAYPN thread https://www.ontabletop.com/forums/topic/what-are-you-painting-now-2025-edition/

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Question of the week:

• It might be me, it might be the sing of the times or there really is a shift in our hobby. Where is this all going?

And now back to the show.

[sundancer 44478xp 0]

From the last thread:

If anyone wants a copy of the Sand (definitely legally distinct from Dune) rule book they put the extras they had left over after Salute on eBay.  The game uses a card for each miniature to manage activation and interaction and the cards are included in the book for you to photocopy or *shock/horror* cut out.

Pledge: Uhm….. I missed 3 pledges at leas plus I failed the monthly PaintComp so no pledge from me currently.

Answer (or rather clarification): for some time now I have the feeling the tabletop hobby is going in all sorts of directions. Some go more board game adjacent others small to tiny number of model skirmishes and you classic large scale battles. It feels like “all over the place” and if you try to keep up with all the new shiny you’ll be ground to a very fine powder. What’s the end goal? Where does the journey lead? What are we aiming for? Will be in some years time all be just painting virtual 3D models in the small sleepingpods of mega cities? Will be still have larger gaming conventions and meetings?

As you can see: my brain is all the place. To much stuff that I want to do, to little time to actually do it.

[pagan8th 14844xp 1]

Pledge… Continue MCP Project.

Ever since covid there has been a lot of ‘solo rules’ for skirmish games which I think is primarily motivated by the company making solo rules trying to stay afloat during difficult times.

The more board game adjacent games are to lure in younger players that take one look at a 300 page rule book for a wargame and feel light headed. I think that’s why more games are using apps too… because younger generation prefer apps to computers and searchable online source instead of hefty rules tome.

Smaller skirmish games seem to be directed towards shorter attention spans and perhaps towards the shorter amount of time we have available for gaming.

Painting virtual 3D models is not for me, but if Bolt Action computer game is good then I’m willing to play that. I just hope it’s better than the terrible GW adaptions of some of their skirmish games.

As to where it ends… that’s simple… it ends in a retirement home for old gamers who sit around in their armchairs complaining about how it was better in ‘the good old days’.

Or is that what these forums are? A place for gamers to sit around grumbling about the ‘good old days’! Is this our retirement home?

[horati0nosebl0wer 20553xp 1]

Pledge: Put in more words here on the forum with mini painting updates and banter

I think that the shotgun blast for interest divergence is a side effect of having many people being interested in many things and having access to all the things all of the time. Cat herding is a noble endeavor when you carry around a tin of lure and a laser pointer for promoting a direction of motion. My thought on the future is more card game addicts and higher memory prices for PCs as the attention span for most people dwindles. Books are going to be more rare as the investment is too much for most people’s wallet with turnover in some systems (eyeing a certain 3 year sales cycle). Maybe smaller games will get a chance but suffer from illiterate gamers that rely on established popular IPs for media reference.

Or is that what these forums are? A place for gamers to sit around grumbling about the ‘good old days’! Is this our retirement home?

Retirement home? Damn, this means that the closest to sexy hot nurses I’m to get are the ones I’ll be painting for the tabletop or to stand on a shelf.

As you can see: my brain is all over the place. Too much stuff that I want to do, too little time to actually do it.

Ugh, my legacy is leaving behind books and toys to be enjoyed by nobody else. I’ll need to finish all my armies and leave it in my will to have my hobby collection given to my FLGS. Perhaps we should do more to promote the playing and hobby side for continued nerd culture? SNAG-A-NORMIE!

Addendum right after I posted this:

[sundancer 44478xp 0]

Damn, this means that the closest to sexy hot nurses I’m to get are the ones I’ll be painting for the tabletop or to stand on a shelf.

Or when @lloyd dresses up again. 8)

[templar007 52401xp 0]

Or when  @lloyd dresses up again. 8)

 

Glad I missed that??? I think…….

[pagan8th]

A nurse with a beard is wrong.

• This reply was modified 3 days, 15 hours ago by pagan8th.

[sundancer 44478xp 1]

@templar007  I have a sketch of it when he did some policing 😉

[zoidpinhead 12923xp 2]

Pledge:  Still plugging away at the SCC Regiments of Renown.  I’ve nearly finished The Avenging Knights of the Cleansing Flame.  Final detailing on them tomorrow then an entry for the project.  Then I’ll be over the 365 completed models for the year so I’ll give myself a treat and paint a character model.  Maybe the Green Knight.  Probably the finest hand sculpted model that GW ever made.

Where is this (hobby) all going?  What’s the end goal? Where does the journey lead? What are we aiming for? Will be in some years time all be just painting virtual 3D models in the small sleepingpods of mega cities? Will be still have larger gaming conventions and meetings?

Answer:  Goodness me – you like setting us a challenge don’t you.  The whole future of the hobby and our place in it, discuss 😀  Thank you for the challenge.  I’m game.  Let’s try breaking things down a bit:

Firstly.  Stop.  It is easy to feel overwhelmed.  Finding some boundaries might be helpful.  Where are the edges of your hobby?  Can you find them and help yourself to define what is in, and what is therefore out and not requiring your focus.  Try starting with what you definitely don’t do.  We game in 3 main areas – Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Historical.  Do not do one or two of those?  Then within each there are identifiable categories, again find things you don’t do.  So if you are a Sci-Fi gamer does that include; Star Wars, Star Trek, Dr Who, Babylon 5, Dune, 40k, Terminator, Predator, Battlestar Galactica, Mars Attacks, War of the Worlds, etc.

By eliminating areas of non-interest you can more easily find some areas of focus.  These can change over time and that is also okay.  I had a huge Star Wars collection from the Grenadier/WEG era but AMG games didn’t grab me and I ended up selling all of the old miniatures.  It is fine to move on.  So look through your existing collection and Marie Kondo the shit out of it.  Not bringing joy – move it on.  It will bring joy to someone else so why are you being selfish and denying them their joy when it no longer sparks joy for you?

Where is this all going?  The past is the best guide to the future any of us will ever get.  Yes, the hobby is bigger and has more games and points of focus than it did five or ten years ago.  Did we focus on all of those games and miniatures then? No we did not.  How could we?  There were already more games than could be played and more miniatures than could be owned.  The hobby has always been fractured and we allow ourselves to follow the things which attract and sustain our attention.  I’ve never been interested in naval or aviation wargames.  Instantly I can rule out whole swathes of hobby content that some people spend their entire hobby time and budgets on.  I do wargame in the three main topic areas, Historical, Sci-Fi and Fantasy but there are whole areas I don’t get involved with.  I cut back to just 2 different scales across my whole collection, 2mm and 28mm.  I found that very helpful for my focus.  That lets me play two main types of game; whole army command at the corps level (2mm) and large battle down to individual skirmish games (28mm).  For me that’s got everything covered.  I don’t want anything else.

What’s the end goal? Where does the journey lead? What are we aiming for?

We all follow our own path.  Hobby is personal.  Having looked into what I was actually interested in and then narrowed the area of focus a bit (and sold off plenty of the extra stuff) I’m now happy to follow where the hobby butterflies lead me within those boundaries.  I embrace shiny syndrome because I enjoy the ride.  Don’t let anyone else tell you what you have to follow.  Don’t be like Ron Weasley.  You can follow the butterflies.

I looked forward to retiring my entire working life because I knew I’d get time to enjoy my hobby more and gosh darn it I’m going to do that, because otherwise what the hell was the 30 years a wage slave for otherwise?

So if you like Sand (not Dune) then buy it.  The rules are £21.50 + P&P.  Not expensive, even for a modest hobby budget.  If you read them and don’t like them, great.  No need to do anything else.  Put it on the shelf or sell it and move on.

Will be in some years time all be just painting virtual 3D models in the small sleepingpods of mega cities?

No.

Will be still have larger gaming conventions and meetings?

Yes.  People are social animals.

[grantinvanman 10296xp 1]

Tried to buy a copy of Sand (not Dune) but they don’t ship to Canada… LAME.

 

[templar007 52401xp 1]

I also tried, but they don’t currently ship to Kansas.

 

I did email them about it.  I received a pretty quick response.  They said that they were having trouble with International shipping on eBay.  Mentioned something about posting directly to folks, but still didn’t have a quote for. E on shipping to Kansas.

 

To bad, as I’m keen to get into ‘SAND’.  But I’ll solider on!  I’ll get my hands on it some how.  “The spice must flow”  😉👍🤣🤣🤣

[zoidpinhead 12923xp 1]

Tried to buy a copy of Sand (not Dune) but they don’t ship to Canada… LAME.

That is lame!  In their email they said they were using eBay specifically because it would be able to handle international shipping.

[danlee 22877xp 1]

This week’s pledge is to get started on a 12″ figurine I’m going to paint up. The undercoat is drying in the garage as I type.

 

• It might be me, it might be the sing of the times or there really is a shift in our hobby. Where is this all going? – I’m not sure if it’s a shift, or just that the industry is growing and so there are more and more options coming along. 3D printing and digital documents have certainly lowered the barriers to entry.

[sundancer 44478xp 0]

Goodness me – you like setting us a challenge don’t you.

I only write what blurps out my head 8)

I ended up selling all of the old miniatures.

Weird concept 😉

Instantly I can rule out whole swathes of hobby content that some people spend their entire hobby time and budgets on.

That brings up a thought: I always feel bad when I see friends and fellow creators publish new stuff (videos, blog posts etc) and I don’t enjoy it but still leave it running because I feel I own it to them. But that really eats into my spare time to a degree. Maybe I need to change some of those things and get more time for other things.

Finding some boundaries might be helpful.

Oh I have many of those. First is money, second is space. But in regards on what you meant on it: I don’t enjoy any modern history (so from WW I onwards), history is way to intimidating to me. Haven’t really found any fantasy that really keeps me interested besides Frostgrave and the main focus is SciFi in 28mm or 6mm

In their email they said they were using eBay specifically because it would be able to handle international shipping.

Maybe it’s “international except the US” because of the current weird situation in trade?

Anyhow: let’s do some hobby. Maybe.

[grantinvanman 10296xp 2]

I could see the US because of the tariff uncertainty; I have a small music online resell shop that I used to use to clear out unwanted stuff occasionally, and I flat out stopped selling to the US (80% of stuff used to go there), because of the nonsense (THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!).

But Canada has none of the silliness. Whatever, it’s not like I needed more stuff anyway. If anything, I need to thin my herd as a spring clear out.

Mexico trip cancelled – soccer game got cancelled, then my hotel got cancelled. At that point, I just cancelled my whole trip. Two weeks of vaccine prep for nothing. At least I didn’t lose too much on the whole debacle. I’ll stick to going places that I can trust in the future, like Europe or the pacific countries like Australia/NZ, Japan, Korea. Avoid third world nonsense.

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