red5angel

I think comparing CAV and CBT is difficult at best. Mechs tend to be larger, but "lighter" because realistic mass was never applied in CBT (An Atlas would be far heavier then 100 tons.). CAV tend to be smaller but their weight is probably more accurate. CBT holds a special place in my heart just because I played it for so long. The system is weighty and vague and things like ranges, weights, sizes tend to be all over the board and not entirely consistant, if that's important to you. The game itself takes forever to play if you play with more then a handful of Mechs per side. We used to play company sized battles that would take the better part of a day and we often playd 6-10 hours. In return though the system is more "detailed". I don't like the static damages really but it takes die rolls out of it and that reduces its play time a little more. As someone pointed out it's got a rich universe behind it. It's been around for a long time and in it's prime had lines of books, minis and game supplements enough to usually warrant it's own section in a game store. Before something like 3040 in the CBT timeline, the game as actually more fun in my opinion. Technology was weak, so you had to think a little more about how to use your Mechs resources to destroy your opponent, heat was always a concern. With the coming of the clans it took the soul ou of CBT in my opinion. It turned into just another big mech game where you slap as many weapons onto your mech as possible and blast away mindlessly until it's all done. CAV is more streamlined, you can play a company sized game in a couple of hours tops. It manages to get enough detail to make it somewhat interesting, but currently the limits of variation are too small. That sounds like it's getting changed however. The game plays quick which is nice, especiallly if your just looking for a quick pickup game. CAV historically has been weak on fluff, but that too is going to change. Overall CAV is a relatively new game and so is still growing. It has a lot of potentialy and it seems like the reaper crew is finally interested in tapping that potential and doing something with it. I feel over the next year the game is going to get much much better. It's fun to play now and that makes it an exciting time for CAV in my opinion.

I spend easily 100$ a month on gaming, it might be spread out a little, say 200$ this month, 50 the next but with books running atleast 25$ usually, more like 40$ a pop, my miniature habit running about 40$ a month I'd say, 100$ is easy, and I know most of my gaming freinds have similar habits. Could be regional, could be symantics but I guess I don't see what you see. I see kids spending plenty of money on cardgames and collectible games, and that's about it. The people who are buying miniatures, roleplaying games, and all the other misc. stuff run from about 18 on up, and a good portion of that crowd also spend money on all those collectibles. I understand that parents are willing to spend money on their kids, and some of those kids also spend their own money as well, but I still contend that the game industry isn't supported by kids. Adults may be a little more discerning in what they purchase, I'm certainly not going to buy crap because it has a flashy new box, and I'm certainly not apt to follow the cheesy marketing scams GW has going, but I spend easily as much as any of those kids I see gaming. I'm also in Lars' group, I spend more now then I did as a kid, and so do most of my freinds and fellow gamers. Now 100$ a month really isn't all that much unless your working a low paying job, have kids, a wife house and car payments. that's 3$ a day roughly.

I have to disagree with you Nadin. I think kids are part of the market but I think the gaming world is more complex for all that. For instance, kids are certainly the target market for card games, and other tradeable card/clicky type stuff. When I walk into my local game stores you can bet that all the kids in the store are going to be playing a very narrow list of games - Yugi Oh, Magic (a mixed crowd), 40K, and Mechwarrior. Meanwhile if you look aroud you will notice that most of the older people, who aren't playing magic, or the odd game of clicky stuff, are usually playing something other then metioned above, excepting 40K. Now GW has monopolised on the fickle nature of kids and has chosen to go after that market and they do well by it, and their marketing is tailored for it. They recycle everything every couple of years, all the old kids are growing up and moving on, so newer kids are coming in and you have to pull them in with something new and flashy. The rules for 40K, their most kidified game, are simple and essentially easy to use, for the kids again. Kids don't mind spending money on al sorts of junk, since mostly they don't spend THEIR money, but their parents, and parents are often ok with dumping money into their kids hobbies if it gets them out socializing. This strategy has obviously worked for GW and it certainly has helped some of the gaming stores out there but it has also in alot of ways hurt the market. I can even provide an examplel although it's a non-reaper one. I am a press ganger for Privateer Press, pushing their own version of metal crack called WARMACHINE. Now, I here people raving about these miniatures all the time, and I also get crowds of gamers standing around watching our games at the LGS every weekend. But the biggest thing I hear from anyone when I talk to them about playing the game is usually something like "I can't afford to get into another game, I already sank several hundred/thousand dollars into GW, fantasy/40K" I would say if I had to do a pie chart of reasons why people say they can't get into new games - that would be about 50-60% of it right there.

well for my 2 cents, I'm not a big fan of GW for a lot of reasons but one is because of the way they do business with stores. They require so much space for display areas minimum. To be listed on some of their special lists, you have to have even more space for them. They have quite a bit of product and that in and of itself takes up a lot of space. My LGS began to sort of get overrun by GW. Now, almost half the store is GW and I can't get many historical miniatures at all from them. A lot of other smaller miniatures games companies also get maybe one small rack or two on the wall in the meager space alotted to everything other then GW. I still pray to the gods that one day that ship will burn and sink.....

http://www.wowwee.com/catalog/other_robosapien.html This should just about complete my plans for world domination.

just another step in the right direction, no pun intended. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4499831/

General308, good point. It's still downtime and it's still self inflicted damage. Most leader types aren't going to trust your average grunt to overuse it. Sort of like guys worrying about their soldiers running out of ammo.

Some things also have a fluff way of balancing themselves out. I tend to think in somewhat realistic terms, liberally applied to the setting. while overdrive for game purposes is an excellent idea, operationally speaking, unless you can get away from it causing damage to the unit that uses it, I don't see it as getting all that popular with anyone. A few units here and there who operate under lightning strike tactics and have down time between missions might take it as an acceptbale risk but for the most part not many commanders would want it as stock and staple.

#1 - uh, no thanks. That's all I need to do is spend my time calculating where exactly my damage track should be, it takes away from my beer drinking time. Not all rules are going to be perfect, better to get away from nitpicky stuff and just make it straight forward and simple. In this way everyone is penalized the same way so no one has an advantage over another because it's not an army related thing but a rules related thing. If you want to though, include it as a house rule for your own personal entertainment. #2 - Sure it's cheesy but life ain't fare and neither is war. I wouldn't worry too much about it though, again, anyone can get one, and if it's pushing away players, either their just too soft or you need to take it out of your intro/demo games until they get used to the system. I personally ahve never found the Dictator II overwhelming, just a handful. It seems a properly placed Duelist does more damage in my case. My bet is that at some point you will atleast see that sort of ability on multiple units and who knows, it may at some point become an add on for anyone!

That sucks but I have never "heard" of an unspoken code of honor amongst gamers, not anymore then the average public anyway. Gamers know the usefulness of those sorts of things, most gamers want miniatures, almost all of them realise how much they could be worth if sold, and so on. I won't even walk out of my LGS unless one of my players is there attending our stuff.

mengu, that's pretty much what I am talking about. A picture is something different, that truly is NMM because a picture mixes chromatic colors to get the affect painters are trying to get on a 3D object. In essence, while my brain can accept the false colors of a picture it won't for a miniature, because it's not a simulcrum like a picture is, its the actual object.

it is certainly striking, and looks good in it's own way but like talespinner, I often looked at NMM minis, before knowing about the technique itself, and would think something like "cool! stone armor, I've never thought of that!" or "Great leather affect!" a good example us tha model posted by Thepolo - certainly striking, and obviously well done, and while I sort of get what he was after, to me it fails but only because light has a tendancy to sort of spill into even the dark ares somewhat. It's not a criticism of the skill directly, just my own opinion. This guy could obviously paint me under the table (don't go there). In essence, I can appreciate the skill involved but probably won't ever use it for myself, it doesn't look natural, like some people claim. Of course I'm not a big fan of high contrast paint jobs either, although I can again, appreciate the work that goes into them.

I've never been able to explain why I don't like NMM for miniatures. It's not that it doesn't look good to me, it just doesn't look like metal to me, ever. so I was looking at this miniature: http://www.fantization.com/Rackham/Release...ne03/ORGM03.jpg and I thought, it looks real good, wish I could paint like that and my usual, too bad it's NMM. If you look at the "barding" that the critter is wearing the orc is riding, it looks like it is a painting of a miniature. The angle of the miniature brings out the NMM techniques and it makes it look exactly like a drawing, not a miniature! then it hit me, that's it! NMM doesn't show off the depth in 3 dimensional space! My opinion of course. So essentially what it is for me is that I like NMM when it's 2D then my mind looks at it, understand it's not true metallics, but that it is a painting of metallics in chromatics, on a 2D surface. Anyway, just had to rant, seems the right day for it anyway.

Awesome!!!! My wife has been pestering me to run this game for about 2 years now!

sure but that means I'd be forced to find something "collie-esque" cut off some hait, cut the legs off at the knees and reglue the feet back on! Seriously though, I think it would be a great addition to the fmailiar packs.... ;)