"The final change we are making is that from the new season all the events we run with will be only allowing Battlefront miniatures to be used. This is bound to cause some debate, so let me be clear as to why we have chosen to go down this path. Joe, Gareth and our events cost a great deal of money to run: a little over a quarter of a million American dollars this year alone. And, although it seems childish to draw a line in the sand and say, “If you want to play at our events and support the FOW hobby, you should not be bringing other people’s models along,” it is absolutely that simple. Our business is a business and we want Flames Of War to grow; we intend to give it the best support we can, but this support has a cost."
I sympathize with the need to make a buck.
I have always been a little surprised that BF was so enlightened in this regard. One of the things that attracted me to the game was that you didn't have to use their models it was a great contrast to my experience with Games Workshops were some shops won't let you play if have a single non-GW model. (I'm speaking of regular old friendly games on Sunday afternoon) I had some WWII figures from Old Glory and while they are not as good quality wise I was glad I could use them.
I played in my first tournament this spring and had a blast! It was an all BF forces and probably 90% of my WWII collection is this ruling won't keep me out of any tournaments, but I am still discouraged by it.
The reason this policy is very discouraging to me, is not that I think it would ever keep me out of a tournament. I am more concerned with this from the stand point of its "environmental" effect. Will local tournaments start engaging in the same practice? Will we start to see BF stores and BF Clubs they way we do with Games Workshops/Warhammer? Games Workshop is a successful brand it is tempting I am sure to use there business model, this included closing tournaments to non-company figures.
I hope this ruling will not start a move toward excluding gamers who like Flames of war but who for a variety of reasons choose not to use BF model. Some guys built their army years ago and see no need to buy the same force again.
Battle Front stuff is great but you pay a premium, there are less expensive models out there, its usually a buck here and buck there but these savings are real especially to the guy who has to set himself a war-gaming budget and stick to it.
Also Battlefront doesn't make every model in its force list, and it doesn't tell you when or if it will make some of them. Some of us wanting to field a particular force will just go buy it form someone who does make it. Shame on Battle front for not telling me when I could get French 25mm AT guns, I wanted them so I got them from Old Glory instead.
Battlefront is a good company and I firmly believe after some consideration they will drop this silly rule.
I think the "FOW hobby" says it all, they are thinking just like GW.
ReplyDeleteIf we are using their rules and their army lists, that should be it. They should not demand that we also use their models as well.
As to expense to organise the tournaments, if they don't plan to run them at a profit, then they are fools.
You know I missed that... but the more I think on it the more it really bugs me.
ReplyDeleteThis has been changed and updated:
ReplyDeleteBattlefront Official Events Update
In all the years we have been in business we have had an open and honest policy about listening to our gamers and genuinely taking their views on board to the extent of sometimes changing our plans. We apologise for the confusion and angst our announcement has caused as it was never our intention. We did not see this change as a big problem as we were simply formalising something we already thought was existing practise, albeit informally.
In the interests of compromise and fairness to everybody's opinion we will change the word "all" to "majority" (meaning over half) in the tournament rules for the 2013 season. Although we were not clear enough about this last week we did not consider die cast planes, scratch built models or objectives (assuming they are the right size), terrain or models we do not currently make to be covered by this. As is always the case, if you are unsure simply get in touch with your tournament organiser and clarify the situation but we are going to revert to the best option in all cases, common sense.
The new season rules take effect from the masters in December this year and only apply to the officially run Battlefront tournaments listed on our site. Independent tournaments are free to choose their own system, as they always have been.
One of the feedback ideas that did come back from our weekend conversations that we really liked was to also further reward people who came along with 100% Battlefront armies. This is an idea that we will definitely work on for the future.
We are committed to supporting and growing the Flames Of War hobby and want to invest more in the future, in events, the website and programs like the Rangers all of which we are happy to spend money on to provide this to you for free.
We want to thank our moderators for doing such a sterling job this weekend especially given they had no warning at all. We appreciate all the civil comments whether for or against. We feel that our compromise shows that we believed all views have merit. We hope this once again proves that we do listen.
~ Pete, John & John-Paul.