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Vox Populi - The Voice of the People!

  • MD

    Well we had that but too many people bitched about it and it got taken down...

  • MD

    I did notice a bit of a phase change from before production moved to the US to after.

    My guess is that the US team now have a lot more work to do, a lot more stuff they really can't discuss and less time to post updates. And the expansion to Digital has not helped in that regard. 

  • JTam

    https://wargamesatlantic.com/collections/vox-populi

    The total votes are now prominently displayed.  

    Napoleonic Spanish still crushing it.

    The other clear leaders are Early War WW2 British and Conquistador Cavalry.

     

     

  • MD

    @Grumpy Gnome Community Liaison is a thankless task and we are NOT an easy customer base to please. There's a good reason many miniature companies give up on engaging with us.

    If you check the rate of information flow, there really has NOT been a decline. It's just that Digital is drowning other news out a bit.

    Also, to be honest, them putting all their cards on the table regarding projects in development probably backfired a bit as it just got a lot of people hyped up for stuff that's years away and may get delayed because of new opportunities. By which I mean the next time another company comes knocking with a bucketload of cash to hire out the factory for a bit. Digital hasn't delayed production from what was promised in 2021, but you can be sure that Spacenam, Quar and 02 Hundred Hours have had some effect there.

  • Grumpy Gnome

    @Mark Dewis Thankless but essential job. Engaging may be difficult but it pays dividends. 

    Of course you are correct in that hype is a double edged sword. Managing expectations is difficult. And transparency can run the risk of being too reveling in a competitive business. But again it can pay dividends and in the end improve the bottom line. 

    Sure company partnerships have probably delayed in house production but it has not been definitively stated by WGA so that is exactly the kind of speculation I would like to see put to bed by rumor control.... such as when@Hudson Adams made it clear WGA does its own production, countering the rumor that WGA went to a third party company or the rumor that WGA is just Wargames Factory reborn under another name. Transparency and customer engagement counters potentially sales reducing rumors like those. 

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  • GM

    @Grumpy Gnome Just sad that the Opperators and Moderns seem so "Unloved". I had hoped to buy some before I left this mortal form. Now , who can say,  and th Oh-Rahs coming X-mas are still not here.

  • JTam

    @Geoff Maybury 

    The modern kits are still being worked on at the same pace and schedule as before.  Twelvish kits a year ....  So realistically 1 to 3 years?

    Nothing seems to be getting enough traction to jump the queue any time soon.

    Except maybe Napoleonic Spanish.  That's still gaining votes.  There's evidently a real desire for them in the hobby community.  Which kind of points to the strength of Vox Populi:  Who saw that coming?  And if a Facebook poll had shown similar results I would have assumed spammers.  

  • GM

    @JTam Just seems strange, in my mid 20`s I wished for modern vehicles and troops for Twilight 2000 and here in my "Twilight" I`m still waiting, at least Rubicon are slowly bringing the vehicles. Perhaps "The Perrys" might start a Cold War series, I mean, look at Team Yankee, and Red Dawn, who`d have guest, even Plastic Soldier as gone Cold War.

  • MD

    I think as a rule, the WW3 crowd tend to favour the smaller scales. 15mm or smaller, due to the vehicles and weapon ranges. Flames of War went there a long time before Bolt Action did.

    Napoleonic Spanish being popular doesn't really surprise me much. No one else has done them in plastic that I know of, and they're an integral part of the Penninsula War. 

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  • Grumpy Gnome

    Smaller scales help with weapon ranges and more vehicle focused combat but I think it can also be a bit of a chicken and egg issue. Do companies make more 15mm WW3 because there are more 15mm WW3 players or are their more 15mm WW3 players because more companies make 15mm WW3 figures?

    I can see where WW3 may not market well right now but Codemasters/Bohemia Interactive made/are making a lot of money with the Operation Flashpoint/Arma series of computer games. 

    And the Twilight 2000 RPG recently had a successful relaunch, and it is less vehicle focused than having scores of tanks and IFVs in the Fulda Gap. 

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  • JTam

    I don't buy into the smaller scales being better suited for Cold War/WW3 gaming due to the "vehicles and weapons ranges."

    Vehicle density between WW2 to the Cold War probably declined.  It certainly has between WW2 and now.  

    Cold War/Modern vehicles have greater weapons ranges but it doesn't matter for two reasons.

    1.  Genuine as opposed to theoretical maximum effective range of a weapons system in Western Europe is 9 times out of 10 dictated by line of sight. You can hit a tank size target at a kilometer?  That's great.  Tell me the next time you run into an enemy you can see a kilometer away in Western Europe.  

    2.  A 15mm WW2 tank and a 15mm modern tank should have the same range on 4 by 6 foot table... i.e. the whole table.  No practical difference.  (If you are playing on a GIANT table there may be a difference.  Good on you.  That's a nice problem to have).

    Infantry weapons maximum ranges have gone down from WW2.  The medium machineguns have similar ranges to their WW2 counterparts.  Modern rifles have considerably less maximum range than their WW2 counterparts.  30.06 has considerably more legs than 5.55.  And 7.62x54R completely outranges 7.62x39.

    In terms of actual effective range they are the same.  Good luck ever hitting a man with a rifle past 300 meters under combat conditions.  (300 meters is actually pretty optimistic).

     

  • Grumpy Gnome

    @JTam I hear you mate, I was just reflecting what I have read in places like the Toofatlardies forum. Chain of Command for example is written for 15mm but even Rich of Toofatlardies uses 28mm for Chain of Command because he prefers the aesthetics. 

    The first problem I had with Bolt Action was the weapon ranges. I am all for line of sight when it comes to many modern (and sci-fi) weapons on a 6x4 table.

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  • JTam

    @Grumpy Gnome 

    The weapons ranges in Bolt Action were curtailed to enable a little maneuver on a 6x4 table.  It was a deliberate decision.  The weapons ranges were also based on how far a man can hit a moving, fleeting target, who is trying not to be shot.  Which is considerable less than the max or theoretical effective range.

  • MD

    I think it's less the weapon range thing than the size of the forces. Generally speaking, the wargaming community has preferred to play with infantry companies and tank squadrons for their modern warfare needs. It's hard to field those in full at 28mm, so 15mm or smaller has usually been the scale of choice.

    WW3 platoon skirmish games outside RPG games are a bit niche, which likely explains the general lack of 25-30mm ranges. When Twilight 2000 was popular in the late 80's, it was all metals.

    The revival game likes doing things on hexes with counters, I think 10m hexes. Definitely designed with larger units as a possibility.

  • Grumpy Gnome

    @JTam I am aware of that, however it is counter to your own point about line of sight range for many modern weapons. 


    @Mark Dewis I would agree that unit scale has affected the situation and above company level it becomes challenging to field at 28mm on a 6x4 given modern battlefield dispersal however I would add that there has definitely been hunger for squad and platoon level WW3 28mm miniatures and games expressed on the Lead Adventure Forum. 

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  • JTam

    @Grumpy Gnome 

    I was just explaining the rationale behind the Bolt Action ranges.  

    It's just a game mechanic.  And one of many ways weapons ranges have been handled in various ways as you know. 

    Alternatively, you could have Infantry weapons range the length of the board but they should have so many minuses to hit it's almost the same as being out of range. 

  • JTam

    @Mark Dewis @Grumpy Gnome 

    "WW3 Platoon skirmish games outside of RPGs are a bit niche..."

    True enough.  But another way to put it is that WW3 games that aren't Flames of War's 15mm Team Yankee are a bit niche.  

    Flames of War was crushing it 10-15 years ago.  I used to see it on gaming tables everywhere. They seem to still be doing well... They just aren't quite as dominate.  

    But if they have a rival in historical gaming it is Warlord with Bolt Action.  A Bolt Action Cold War expansion could single handledly change the paradigm.  

    "All" it has to be is a campaign book and lists.  People massively overblow the technological and doctrine differences between WW2 and the Cold War..... Particularly at the Infantry Platoon plus level.  The Standard Bolt Action rules would work fine.

  • MD

    @JTam oh, don't get me wrong... it only takes one popular rule set or supplement and *boom* - 28mm moderns are the current flavour of the month and everyone is scrambling to cater for it. I was just pointing out why it hasn't been much of a thing before.

    I would love some 28mm moderns for RPG purposes. 

  • Grumpy Gnome

    @JTam I prefer extreme ranges possible with minuses to not possible at all... which I have found to encourage the game to play out like an airsoft or paintball game., with troops too often feeling safe out in the open on a table edge. 

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  • MD

    @Grumpy Gnome I don't think it ever had much effect on anything in the end. But an awful lot has changed since that time.

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  • PM

    @Grumpy Gnome I agree. My preferred skirmish rules allow shooting clear across the board, with reductions as appropriate. This makes players always mindful of using cover or actively seeking line of sight blockers from enemy shooters.

  • Yronimos Whateley

    I think this is a great idea - definitely doesn't seem like it was meant to be a cash-grab to me:  it's not a lot different from a "pre-order" option, with the ability to put the funding toward anything you want, and it definitely seems to have been motivated by trying to gain meaningful market research data.

    I definitely didn't see the results they're getting coming!  Seems like it's a much more accurate gauge of what paying customers are interested in, than suggestions from us vocal forum users, and the more traditional polls.  Or, at least, it's painting a different picture of what paying customers are interested in, than the other sources of data that WGA have been using.

    The biggest surprise for me, really, is the popularity of the cavalry kits - I just don't game with cavalry very often, and don't know anyone who does, so I never really trusted the anecdotal popularity of cavalry in request threads and the like.  That does seem to be an area where the forums, polls, and Vox Populi seem to agree.  Same thing with the Deathfields heavy/command kits:  I'm a bit surprised how popular those seem to be in Vox Populi, but that seems to be doing well.

    And, I'm a bit surprised that some of the fantasy and sci-fi options aren't more popular.  Seems like Napoleonic historics are carrying a lot of the weight, followed up relatively distantly by dark ages subjects.

    I'll wait a bit and see how stable the future looks for me, and if I feel comfortable with it, I think I'll add a little of my weight to Vox Populi - I, for one, do have a soft spot for the niche subjects like moderns, near-future, sci-fi, Victorian, pulp, and the like!  :)

     

  • Don Williams

    @Ten Fingered Jack I feel the same way about the Merovingian Franks. Been waiting for over a year for this kit.

  • JK

    @Don Williams same, except for me its the Afghan Cavalry. When they were first previewed in Sept 2020, I was excited. Sprue previewed in Nov 2021 seemed right on time. But now? I guess at 0 votes if I see them before 2030, I guess will be lucky. I just can't justify paying for votes for something it doesn't look like I will ever see.

  • Yronimos Whateley

    Note that - as I understand it - you aren't precisely buying what you're voting for - it's more like a general gift code that can be applied to anything you like in the online shop at any time, with a vote that happens to be attached.

    Excerpts from the explanation on the Vox Populi page:

    The $5 vote is a gift code that will be emailed to you on checkout and immediately redeemable in our store. You can use them now or save them for a future purchase.... This isn’t a crowdfunding campaign. The money is not held or allocated for any specific set...

     

    That's not much comfort if you are not a regular customer of the online shop and intend only to buy the item you're voting for, but if you're going to be spending money in the online shop regularly, then these gift codes should be something you can apply to anything you like in the store, even if whatever you vote for never collects enough votes to be produced!

     

  • Gt

    Hello, is there any update to Vox half year in? Is it working? Do most people who buy WA products even know it is a thing? I'm curious what % of WA sales involve people redeeming Vox vouchers.

     

    It is weird that out of nowhere "Death Fields Grognard Cavalry" just skipped the line entirely and are confirmed to be working as a plastic set. Plus The Damned sets are slated for a early/mid 2024 release (theres like 11 of them I think in total?).

     

     

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  • Caratacus

    @Gregor the Converter The Grognard horse cavalry that are coming out in plastic were never in Vox Populi, they were a Digital set originally. The Vox Populi set you were thinking of was the 'Grognard Raptor Cavalry' which have now mysteriously lost the Grognards label - perhaps because WA was testing to see whether people would prefer the horse variant or the 'raptor' (which I hope isn't just generic velociraptors because they're overrated and have been done to death) variant, and seemingly they've decided that Grognards will get the horse cavalry and the Raptor Cavalry will be designed for some other faction.

  • Drangir

    @Gregor the Converter the only hard rule they've put, is that passing 1000 votes pushes the set to the front of production. Aside of that, it's mostly an interest gauge. The sets are in the production anyway, so such "skips" will happen.

  • Gt

    @Drangir "the sets are in the production anyway"

    I just wish there was a bit more transparency on all of this.

    I mean its pretty depressing to get exicted for news, only for plans to change.

    Like last year June from the news article "Results from the Driver's Seat Contest!" Nov would have seen Modern "Operators" who beat out WW1 british. And now we have WW1 british, with moderns nowhere to be found.

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  • Lord Marcus

    @Chris Guy yes it would.

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