We are a couple of dudes that have been hobbying for decades, and we are trying to share our knowledge and expertise with anyone that wants to learn. We also just love to hang out, paint toy soldiers and have a good time. Our videos will range from specific tutorials on 'how to' do a specific technique, to chatting about hobby topics, answering questions from our viewers, and having special guests on to talk about other aspects of this amazing hobby. Check us out on Twitch for our live content :)
Hey guys… love your actual take on the industry. I wish other commenters would realise that the channel and insights are based on industry and commerce. It’s really internet to hear your take on. Here in the uk it got about as big as it seems to have in Canada. One of the beloved alternatives to gw stuff. One game I would love to hear your thoughts on is bushido. It’s a fantastic game, setting and lore is excellent. However, availability of product is… well… dogs@*t anywhere other than Gct. It is still a thriving community and product. It just seems to be that way despite a lack of availability in flgs and a Stone Age website from the manufacturer. I’d also like to know how popular bushido is in Canada. I know that ash from guerilla plays it intermittently on his channel, but that man is an absolute machine in term as of the different games he plays
I think we realize it's they're industry experience but when you post a ragebait title and seem to refuse to believe the commenters when they say the game is doing well, folks get upset.
Lazy? That's a little reductive for an experience spanning more than 5 years. It may not align with your experience but it's still our story to tell :) Thanks for the comment :)
@@lordsofwargamesandhobbies3905 Aww honey, I know you gotta keep stoking the fire, but we can see the view count. Pretty high for a video on a 'dead' game.
I tried to get into it. So much to love about it but there was just far too many rules. Never mind losing but I often felt like I’d no idea what was happening half the time. Shame as I love so much about it.
WHOOOOA! Hold up! Wait a minutes! Leeeeets back up to that point where you're talking about that one customer who bought that mini from somewhere else other than your store. You stated that this gave you animosity towards that customer, for buying something outside your store. You then proceeded to talk about how your customer is wrong for not supporting the place they are playing in. Think about that for a minute.... THAT is not the game company causing you to have animosity towards your customer. YOUR customer has a life to live, responsibilities, and bills to pay - just like you do. Now, i understand the need for customers to support their "FLGS" and all, but thats just not right at all. You can't get pissy with your customers, because they don't buy their models from you. And if i were to ever feel that vibe from my "FLGS", i'd stop going there. As a customer, i'm there to have fun, and not have an anxiety/salty-prone salesman looking at me with disdain, over what i'm putting on the table. You want my money? You need to work for, kid. Because with how expensive this shit is, there is no way that i'm not buying my models from somewhere else. On the OTHER hand, i see purchasing stuff from my FLGS as a 'mercy', more than anything else - that is also not a healthy attitude to have, but it is most-definitely one that your ilk have fostered in the various tabletop gaming communities. You provide a place to play games at, while hoping that they will spend money while there. Period. Thats it. Your relationship and thoughts on ANY customer should end there. When you start getting expectant, and blaming the game companies for your poor attitude towards your customers - that is exactly when you should start seeing your sales decline. It is, and always will be about providing the best customer sales and services. When you are providing that, you'll never have another worry about where your customers are getting their games and models from. Don't be putting that on the game companies, OR on your customers EVER!!!
You want my money? Have a big fridge full of bottled drinks, a variety of snacks, and run event sales every so often. 10-15% for a weekend is a REALLY big deal, and will help you drive your sales. And if you're nice about it, and don't show any animosity towards your customer, then you might just get someone who loves spending money in your shop, because you've gone that extra mile to make sure they feel comfortable in your store.
You just described someone that comes to the store just to play games as a 'customer'. A customer is someone who purchases something from a business. I hope that you can pay your bills with people having an 'experience' in your space but that doesn't work for most businesses. We are not a community centre, we do not recieve funding from the local government to cover our bills. If you don't like that reality, you should probably play at home or rent out a space somewhere with your mates. Thanks for the comment.
I am hearing the pains and challenges of a game store in Canada, trying to stock a game they like but it either being too expensive or just not possible due to distributors dropping it. I can understand that frustration, but to thumbnail and create a clickbait (your words from in the comments) title of a game being dead when that's completely wrong is just using your platform to try to push it down, which just sucks. Your critiques of the game itself are rooted in the previous edition because you haven't played or seen the current edition, and you keep talking about how small their footprint is at conventions when that's verifiably not the case. You guys chose to go GW for your personal choices you called out in the video, but crapping on other games that are still being played and growing makes no sense. Come on, guys. You clearly didn't choose to do any research about the current state of the game or the company outside of the brief look on the website you mentioned at the very end as a footnote about models being used in The Other Side and Malifaux. I'm sorry you had a negative experience trying to acquire and sell the game in 2e. That certainly had issues with the game's popularity locally, but it is not a representation of the whole. Don't lash out at the game and, by proxy, one of the nicest mini game communities out there by calling their favorite game/hobby dead.
Biased a bit mate? I know the things we said are probably hard to hear. But they are an objective telling of what has occurred. If you think Malifaux is as big today as it was during the early to mid days of 2nd, then there's not much I can do for you :) I appreciate the comment, and like we said in the video, we loved the game. Your comment about us trying to stock the game is at the end of the story - ignoring the entire journey of how we got there. All the best.
@@lordsofwargamesandhobbies3905 clearly biased of course; you're coming after a game I love and a hobby I really enjoy. Your objective telling stopped at 2e, which is dated and just verifiably wrong in many places where things stand today. Don't use your platform to try and suffocate a great game that continues to grow and has a top notch community
We liked the 1st edition, it was fresh and had vibrant looks. The world looked great initially. Then they made quite a bit of an artwork change and oddball choices for characters. But the real reason for me is that it's not an accessible game to show new players...it's far to heavy rule's wise and games become too long to play.
Bruh. Malifaux is growing in my area. What an infuriating hot take. Shouldn't you be trying to lift things up and get people excited? Why drive people away from a game?
Ok! Breakdown from a Malifaux content creator while listening to this: 1. Game isn't dead. They state it's a Clickbait title. The title is more accurate to read 'The fall of Malifaux in our area'. 2. Minis printing in China/Taiwan has helped them succeed as a minis company, but it has also been the crux of a few issues stated later in the video, like the poor rollout of TOS. Distribution has been pretty hit-or-miss since the start of the pandemic but I don't think they can afford to shift to printing in the US as they're a small company. 3. The awkward rollout of 3rd ed was due to it getting leaked ahead of when they wanted to. They did a decent job of trying to mitigate the damage by making the beta public, but if they're to be blamed for anything, it's less-than-stellar web security, not the decision to announce the edition when they did. 4. Sales! Yes Wyrd has a 'sale' every Gencon, Black Friday, and Easter. I genuinely don't remember when Wyrd sold things that weren't being released more that a few weeks later. I'm not saying the creators are lying, but it has been a long while since that would have been the case. Definitely not in 3rd Ed which has been going for 5 years. The GenCon sale is the closest to said issue since whatever box or two they sell that's new is coming out that month (which happens at the end of the month). Black Friday and Easter's appeal are alt models that Wyrd only sells at that time. Those alts ALSO work their way into the prize support rotation. 5. The henchman program ended with the shift into 3rd edition (5 years ago) and hasn't come back, probably because of the logistics issues noted in this video. Those of us that want to run events just do, and we'll ask the company for prize support which they often deliver. Regardless, the only issue with running an event without a Henchman just mean you didn't get prize support, you can still run the event. 6. Again, 3rd edition was supposed to be announced later. It was a leak. 7. The boxes having invalid cards sucked, that's true. However, they were all still viable minis. Part of the mitigation of that issue was the rollout of the free app, as well as cards being fairly cheap to print online and the start of edition card packs. This 'issue' is applicable to all minis games that change editions? 8. Weird how forgiving the creators are to GW, but if it's what makes them money, they gotta be nice. I personally don't believe the singular edition change card packs wasted as much space as every codex change from 40k, though. I guess I'm also not sure how exactly one is supposed to handle an edition change 'correctly' at this point. 9. Correct on the game getting bloated. That's why they changed editions. 10. The card mechanic is integral to the system, correct. Both the cheating mechanic and the trigger mechanic are some of the core things that make the game what it is. It's a thinking game, where you have a lot of options and tactics in front of you that rewards being clever. If you'd rather push space bros forward and just shoot stuff, Malifaux isn't for you. 11. The distributer issue is kind of the distributer's fault, not Wyrd's. Wyrd's option to sell direct to stores was due to distributers being jerks (I think Diamond in the US being the worst culprit). They still use distributers, but the direct option is available for stores that wanted product but couldn't get it. I dunno if the direct option was the reason for the Canadian distributers to drop it, they don't directly say in the video. 12. I see a good amount of international chatter about the game, but I'm also listening in on the community. UK especially has a pretty stellar national event. Some people in other countries have really popularized playing on VASSAL. 13. There are youtubers? I don't get this point. They/we exist but since it's a game that's not GW nor based on a popular IP, it's just going to get less traffic. Also we have a solid podcast presence for what it's worth. 14. Since they're complimenting Steamforged, I feel like if we treat Steamforged like we're treating Wyrd here, they'd be saying they're the worst because they publicly blamed their community when they killed Guild Ball. 15. I don't know the reasoning behind Wyrd not paying for ads, but I don't recall them ever paying for ads. On top of that, they're like...30 employees. 'Why don't they do x?" could be answered by they are spending their resources on something else. Whether or not that's the correct thing to be focusing on can be debated. 16.TOS design was started when they were comfortably at the end of 2nd edition. It's a similar game to Malifaux in a lot of its mechanics, and I've heard several people describe it as a 'army-sized skirmish game' (I don't understand the bike analogy or saying it 'had nothing to do with' Malifaux). The kickstarter, I assume, was to gauge interest and build the money needed to print without seriously straining the company (I assume). The rollout was botched but that's the risk of printing across an ocean. Then they were hit with the pandemic which really hurt the game. It has solid bones, though, and they're still putting out content. As far as the minis are concerned, their first foray into preassembled minis did not go well. Subsequent products have been noticeably better (the aforementioned crossover boxes). That being said, the preassembled stuff was CHEAP compared to Malifaux minis. Buying a allegiance box got you half of an army at $4-$5 a mini. Overall I wished they corrected the title, but from what I hear, they're attaining a good amount of attention from the Malifaux community that's slightly perturbed by the seeming dishonesty. It's not a dead game, but it definitely could have died in their area. Most of they opinions shared are from half a decade ago.
Uh, Malifaux is a great game. We just ran a new-player-friendly event and had like half our field be new players. There are tournaments at most major cons and even an international IRL scene, plus plenty of groups that run events on vassal across player groups and metas. It's also by far the best set of mechanics for translating player agency into game effects, and the Fate deck's two core mechanics are an amazing engagement with RNG. The game isn't "dead" or "fallen" at all -- it's got plenty of enthusiasts and new people jumping in.
My experience with Malifeaux is an endless cycle of "oh, that sounds cool. I'd like to check that out!" followed by no one having stock or selling it at all.
I always thought of Malifaux as some kind of RPG with miniatures, not as a skirmish competitive game meant for tournaments. This tends to make communities playing it kind of private, a bit similar to Necromunda in its current edition. I honestly didn't know they were still around, it's true their online presence is close to nothing.
I quit Malifaux right after buying my first box - Pandora Core Box. There is a model in that set, called Candy. It's 1 inch tall girl standing on two 0.5mm legs. Those legs are all that connects her to a base. Two 0.5mm plastic legs. You can't pin them. They broke immediately, obviously. I'd love to try the game. Maybe, in 10 years or something, when Wyrd will figure out that they can't just sculpt cool stuff without thinking what's going to happen when it'll be the time to build and paint.
They've made a concerted effort to be less fiddly in 3rd ed. There are still outlier kits but it's noticeable. No more Yan Lo's beard or Zombie Chihuahua tail. I believe Candy got an alt with a more solid connection point.
Negative videos spike controversy and engagement. They'll probably prune the comment section to keep it negative enough so people keep commenting and the video does better.
First ed was great. The minis were so full of character and the game itself was fresh then 2nd and 3rd hit and here in the uk the interest disappeared. Some tournaments here andnthere but stock is hard to come by and its dropped off in favour of ither readily available games. The gw push back for smaller scale ganes, fallout, dead mans hand, marvel, batman have all pushed way ahead of mailfaux which is a shame cos it was once a top, top game
As someone who backed TOS Kickstarter I can say the game was decent the models paint up gorgeously but that the whole thing was a mess once the initial campaign ended! I remember a bunch of delays resulting in it arriving really late (I think 2 years but it’s been awhile) terrible communication to backers no real updates for long stretches of time and they even forgot to pack backers free kits that we unlocked in campaign. I did get the set they forget faster then expected but when it arrived it was literally the models tossed in a box of packing peanuts no box no bag nothing just tossed in the box with the bases at the bottom at random and they didn’t even send me the tracking number they said they’d send. I backed it with the intention to add on an entire second faction in backer kit but wyrd burned that trust and I cut out everything I wanted to add on. Shame cause I had nothing but great experiences with Malifaux
I guess books don’t have an expiry, there’s still people playing 6th edition WFB for example. I guess for the books not to become “invalid” GW needs to release a complete edition of a game with everyone getting a release that everyone considers relatively balanced and fun, like they must have done with 6th to have people attached to it 25 years later. Will that happen with AoS 4th, 40k 11th?
I tried to get into it, but my local community was way too competitive to teach the game in any decent manner. It was weird going from other table tops where the jump in was enjoyable, and people were happy to help. Seemed like everyone was that guy and it really ruined the game for me. Love the models though got me a ton of goblins.
There’s just so many plates you can keep spinning, as a player. I see a number of systems that seem interesting, but picking up the new thing would mean putting down something else. I can remember when Malifaux first came out and one of the local stores started stocking it. There was just no one playing the game. Perhaps, if there had been some intro/launch events, the system might have taken off. But that didn’t happen.
First off... I cant find this cringey privateer press commercial video anywhere online to see. Anyone have a link?!? :D Secondly, I have this unicorn family you referenced! lol. I just played a wargame with my daughter, wife, and 2 sons on a gaming table in our kitchen last week. So although we may be rare we do exist! lol :D
I remember when Wyrd miniatures booth at gencon was tiny and all they sold was a few miniatures. Kind of sad to see all the small makers from when I got into the hobby falling by the wayside.
They're not - they had a massive booth at GenCon this year the Defective Dice channel on YT even did a showcase of it. This year. In 2024. These guys are talking about M1E and M2E ... not the current state of the game ... M3E has been out for 3x years now and has had 3x major expansions ...
Where I’m at malifaux was big several years ago. The lgs stocked it but it was a short lived thing. There were a few people playing it but it didn’t last. I honestly didn’t know it was even still being produced. I do agree that GW gets all the attention but it’s big and it’s what sells. GW can have competition and I think right now would be a good time for it. There was a time when warmahordes was being played by more people in my area than 40k.
We have good board games stores, but they are light on miniature and war gaming. They tend to focus on GW. So I tend to buy on the internet. Given that I refuse to buy GW, from a gaming perspective, I don't have many options.
Malifaux is just now picking back up where I'm at. It was a bit of a 1, 2, 3 punch out here. First there was the killing off 3 of the most popular masters, the shifting of boxes with the edition change, and then covid. People were shocked when we started at our local LGS, as there was still a bunch of fans, but the community had died out. I still think it is hands down the best game on the market, but they really need to do something about the SKU bloat.
Guys ... come on. Your channel is great and we really enjoy it, but this one is a miss ... Wyrd has grown this game massively in the last 2-3 years and it's been such a hit for them that they've used the profits to help them expand into board game publishing. The game isn't dead at all ...
I will second that statement from Dangerplanet. I will say there are areas where it is not common it certainly isn’t dead by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a very thriving community with some wonderful content creators trying to boost its popularity. I know the game isn’t for everyone and that is fine. In fact that is why there are so many different miniature games out there. Also, the title of this video is very misleading because just as Dangerplanet said the game isn’t dead or dying.
Once they started to put out the Nightmare editions direct sale version of the sets it was the start of the end. They are still making some grear models but there is no store support. I think there is only one store that has any significant stock of the miniatures in the area and it is all over a year old.
most of the time, when a game has a new edition, I just want them to consolidate all of the faqs in the new edition. Like, the faq for blood bowl is like 19 pages for example. I'd love that consolidated into the 3rd season of the ruleset.
Malifaux isnt dead 😂. our uk community has about doubled in the last couple of years. It's growing strongly and has a super dedicated community. Sounds like alot of these issues are unique to Canada and from several years ago. Completely agree with some of the criticisms- it's a nightmare of a game for a shop to stock due to the sheer volume of skus and the fact there is no clear on-boarding process or first purchase for a new player. Also the launch and then subsequent abandonment of the other side wasn't great. Personally, I love the game- and its become my main hobby. I have a close-knit community of people around the country who I see regularly at game night and at tournaments and a wider global community who I engage with daily on discord and play with online. For me its a fantastic game for tournaments as the rule set is well balanced for a miniatures game (and wyrd have made a real effort in recent years to listen to the community concerns around balance and act accordingly). Have turned my back on GW for good having discovered Malifaux and realising that i dont have to cycle my army every few months to play competitively. Your perspective was interesting but definitely think that malifaux is here to stay 😊
Despite our clickbait title, we didn't say it was actually dead, just much reduced from what it once was. Glad you are enjoying it, it's a great product.
@@UndeadKing_5150where do you live? I can only mimic James’s comments. Plenty of people in my area are playing it and really good providers of people around the country. There is also a thriving tournament scene.
@UndeadKing_5150 looks like my previous comment was deleted for some reason, but if you were keen to play im sure it'd be easy to hook you up- I guess you've not looked into it in a while but we have a thriving scene in the UK, plenty of sold out tournaments almost every weekend which BTW, wyrd support with prizes at no cost.
Despite the clickbait title, we never said it's actually dead. Just much smaller than it once was, and probably never climbing out of that in our opinion. Glad you found a community you enjoy - that is the whole point of course!
I think you can probably support a game or a store. Hard to do both unless you only play GW these days. And honestly that’s just commerce. Stores will not take a risk on something that might flop, so they only stock well know brands, and that takes the smaller brands out of public view for the new person. Google is there though 😊
That's fair, but we explain in the video very clearly why this happened/happens. Wyrd made a lot of short term decisions chasing a quick buck which led to many stores backing off. You can support a game or a store, we are just talking about the viewpoint of the retailer, since that's what we are :)
very interesting video I played malifaux the first edition for a bit however like warmachine it kinda really died off in the part of canada i'm from on the west coast probably before second edition.
Games in decline or even death phase doesn't mean that their physical models and rules disappear. Sometimes this galvanizes a community even more to rally around it and make something of it.
Malifaux is a phenomenal game. In theory. The setting is incredible, the mechanics are off the charts unique. The problem is reality. The game design has lost the forest for the trees. Sure its great-in theory- that 80 masters play 80 different ways, and now titles even change those 80 masters 80 additional ways. Sounds great, but time and reality are real things. Tournament games are lucky to hit turn 3 (of 5 turns) with 2 and a half hour rounds. The game size is too high, the game length is too long, the game rules are too deep. Its just too much game, unless you want to treat it more like a 3-4 hour RPG type game.
Great points. I think people really do like the idea of malifaux more than they like the real thing. At the end of the day if your minis game takes the same time as 18 holes of golf to play, it's probably a bit too heavy.
Yes. It's my main problem in the game, and why it's sooo difficult to grow a community. Hope they'll fix that with the next edition, with a "tournament format" or something. It might be a real problem in the long term.
Fascinating to hear the retailer side of this story. It sounds like you've got your own distribution issues in Canada, but recently Wyrd have been making new releases available from local retailers about a month or so before they are available directly from Wyrd. I also think that the move from 2nd to 3rd edition definitely improved the flow and readability of the game, along with it having one of the best companion apps out there available for free. While Malifaux is probably my current favourite game, I'm definitely concerned about the growing SKU bloat. Wyrd want to keep adding stuff to the game so it feels alive and healthy, but I'm starting to feel like it's got too much and that in turn is causing some power-creep and devaluing older pieces.
A small company that I think is doing great (from a customer side, maybe they’re terrible for retailers) is Black Site Studios. They’re making lots of games, but each individual game still has a pretty low cost of entry and the communication is some of the best I’ve seen from any company. They recently (very openly) pulled back on what was available off the shelf because a million SKUs is a nightmare for a small company. And the general response online was “cool, you guys do what you need to do to keep up the good work.” Would be curious to see what you guys think of some smaller up and coming teams like them!
Black Site annoys me because they never have inventory, lol. Other than that the zines have been great and they're offering more stuff digitally to cover their production limitations. Hoping they can get past the growing pains as soon as possible.
Recently watched your legion, video then malifaux. I think you made one on warcry also. All dying games. I've been trying to keep up with gurilla minitures video, but I'm missing games that are actually doing well. Gorillas starter box video didn't give me too much confidence. 40k has too dense a rule set. If I'm going to be an advocate for a game, do you have any recommendation? Currently playing legion and frostgrave.
The beautiful thing about frostgrave is that it's not actually trying to break into shops. It's mini agnostic which means customers can use anything, which hobby stores love because we have lots of minis. Legion is headed for shaky times. It's impossible to know how it will go, but at the end of the day if you invest time and energy into getting some mates together regularly to play just about anything you will be happy. Hope that helps!
I got into Malifaux cause I wanted to paint the models, overall It was an okay experince but that game is just way too hardcore for me to recommend. The box of Minis I purchased were tiny and hard to put together. The basic rules are fine, but the faction/unit rules were tough to digest, and the number of tokens littering the board is crazy. Its amazing that with all the above going on that the game can still be a lot of fun to play but it is.
I quit Malifaux when they killed my main Nicodem and pulled my best friend's main, Ramos, after we built our collections around them. Pulling characters based on polls is awful.
