Now, normally I don't call people out by name, but this time I just couldn't resist. Friday I was chatting with Neverness at the FLGS (where he now works), and he was looking at the store's selection of X-wing and Armada quizzically.
NN: I just don't get it, its cardboard.Why is that fun?
ME: Well, there are miniatures too...
NN: Yes, but most of it is cardboard. Why spend all that money on just cardboard?
Well...let's tug on Neverness' ol' heart strings a little bit shall we? lol, he's right of course, cardboard sucks! Everybody wants what's inside the cardboard (box). Who the hell plays with cardboard anyways right? Well, all of us actually. We've done it for two decades now.
Let's take a look back to the Golden Age of GW, the olden days where GW's games, arguably their best games, all relied on vast quantities of...gasp! Cardstock? Meh, really that's just thinner cardboard!
wha...the hell you say?!?
First up: Space Hulk. You know you love this game buddy! The original, the re-release, and the re-re-release, without all of that cardboard, all you really had were some Termies and genestealers. Not much of a game there, right? Hell, I sold I.R.-Voril's re-released Space hulk game WITHOUT minis, all I sold was the cardboard!
Epic? I forgot about Epic, but it popped up in an image search and yeah, buildings, tokens, damage/unit cards...Cardboard everywhere!
Mind you all of this this was back before you youngins' had all the fancy new plastic terrain available for 40k. Speaking of...
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| Here it is, the boxed set that ruined me financially from then on to the present day... |
40K itself! The boxed game was loaded with cardboard terrain! We used it till it disintegrated, and then ya know what? They sold us some more! Boxes and boxes of basically just cardboard, and we ate it up, hell we loved the stuff! Because we were sick of fighting around soda cans and crummy (plain) cardboard boxes...
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| He has that cardboard Dredd and still threatens to field it... |
What else is there...oh, how bout Mordheim? Yup you guess it, cardboard ruins everywhere!
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| Sadly its hard to find good terrain pics for this game... |
Warhammerquest, yes basically it was Fantasy Space hulk, and the same scenario.
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| I loved this game soooo much! |
Necromunda? But wait, that was the age of plastic bulkheads, the grandaddy and forerunner of much of the 40k terrain mentioned above, right? Yes, but without the cardboard in between, all you had was a pile o' useless bulkheads.
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| The game that turned laser pointers into a required accessory |
So, having beaten the horse to a bloody pulp on this little walk down memory lane...yeah, sorry buddy but, that argument isn't valid. So why not give it a try? Come on...ya know ya want to!
What? Ah yes, the canon argument, what wasn't in the movies doesn't count. Well I fielded 150 points of almost entirely nameless scrubs in all canon ships last weekend, so it can still be done. Sure the Z-95 Headhunter is debatable, but then again, it looks a lot like this fighter right here, so maybe it was all canon after all...
Love ya, mean it!
I suppose "touche" is the response you might be looking for, but I believe my actual quote was something like: "Who can justify spending that much money on Micromachines and card oard?!" Or whatever. And yes, a lot games, even ones I play still have cardboard components. With exception to Blood Bowl (how did you miss that one?! LOL), all of the games you cited the miniatures can be used in other games or independent of the cardboard components. Still, this is a good post and the point remains: how much are we paying for "card board"?
ReplyDeleteHrmm...probably as I got into Blood Bowl when it was well past its support from GW I guess.
ReplyDeleteAs for using minis in other games, that was so often the fate of Space Hulk, Mordheim and Gorkamorka and the rest that if anything, such versatility was more of a detriment to the actual games than any sort of bonus.
Oh, and in answer to your query: To much. (just like everything else gaming related, lol)