Saturday, 25 July 2015

Of Miniature Wargaming Rage and Hate

I love this hobby, but recently I've begun viewing it in a new light and gained a different point of view. This hobby has become very toxic is a short amount of time. I admit, I'm not a fan of Games Workshop as a business and have pointed out on several occasions their range of poor business decisions, but I've still stuck to the hobby and have recently expanded into new areas of it. However, it seems that where I have begun to calm down and found new ways to keep myself going, others seem insistent that their opinions be heard and that you must agree or else hate or some crap like that. The amount of hate spewing rage is astounding and I've grown tired of it all.

I understand peoples poor response to the lack of tournament competitiveness that Age of Sigmar currently has and that it happening around the time of some big tournaments ment that people are confused what to do, but that's about it. Personally, I felt 8th was unbalanced and that the only reason it was used in tournaments was because those organisers had their own rules added to make it more competitive. Give a few months and I'm sure some will figure out how to do it with Age of Sigmar too. As for the Warscrolls, what did you expect? GW is there to sell NEW miniatures and the only reason we got anything was to say we could try out the rules and still use our old models, but that the new stuff is better. In fact, that was what the usual thing was with each new armybook/codex release. Every new one would introduce a new powerful unit/character and people would rush out to grab them cause that made their armies more powerful (or at least until the next armybook/codex release). It's what they do.

As I've already said I'm not a fan of the Sigmarines and that the current aesthetic style is not too my liking, but I've learned to accept the game as it is. 8th Edition is gone, the Old World is gone and we need to accept that and move on. If you are unhappy and don't want to play it, that's fine. There are other games out there and many of them are good, but in their own style. There's no need to go overboard with hate and rage and begin burning your armies (mostly cause that's stupid. Put them up on Ebay or something and get some money out of them at least).

Yes, that last part actually happened. More so, people are now raging on other miniature company games simply because they are not the lost 8th Edition either. At one point someone tried comparing 8th Edition to Malifaux, a comparison that was not only ridiculous due to these games being completely different, but was also unnecessary. Like I said, I can understand peoples frustrations, but in the last few weeks all I seem to see is angry articles or rage filled videos with little constructive arguments and more like 'I'm angry and you should be too. I hate this. Rage Quit 2015'. After seeing all this, I can't help but feel like we should get rid of all miniature wargames and thus, remove so much anger from the world.

That's stupid of course, as there are some who actually sat down, took a few breaths and decided to accept and move on. There are a few videos where people have tried to make the best of things and have pointed out many positives. I agree with some of these points too and while in regards to GW I'm not a fan of the business, that fact that I can use cannons in Age of Sigmar without constantly consulting the rules and spending ages trying to determine many calculations is a big benefit to myself (and my opponents as they were certainly annoyed by this every time I wanted to fire a cannon). I also agree that these rules speed up games and the ever releasing scenarios make for some interesting games (meaning rules like Sudden Death are not in it and therefore can't be abused).

I've also discovered new games and new miniatures to paint and convert during these times. If anything, I've begun to have 'fun' again. I think that people have forgotten what the term 'games' mean, being something you do to have fun and to stop boredom. I want people who feel wronged to tell everyone that and then move on to something else. Look around and find something that grabs your fancy. Sure the communities are smaller, but if everyone does it, they will grow in size. There are plenty or tournaments for things like Warmachine, Malifaux .etc, as they are in the same likeness as Warhammer has tournaments (since Games Workshop stopped supporting them years ago), so if you are looking for that competition, then it's still there.

It's time to move on. The Old World was good to us, but times have changed. We must accept and move on, that's just life for you. Sad as it is, there are still bright futures ahead, so go find that certain something that re-ignites that bright spark inside you and learn to have fun again. Trust me, so much better then stewing on rage.

No comments:

Post a Comment