I love miniatures but I’m not really into historical games.  I’ve played Warhammer and some of the collectible games and Uncharted Seas (which is cool).  I even wrote my own fantasy game.  But when I look around, it seems the shops are closing or they’re turning their attentions elsewhere.  At first, I just noticed that entire lines of miniatures were disappearing from the shelves.  The last to go (besides Games Workshop) was Reaper and they make some fine minis.  So now when I go in, all I see is the GW stuff and even that is starting to dwindle.  I have 2 theories:

Kids are not into wargames (or face to face games in general).  After all, getting on line and playing a video game is much easier than setting up a board or organizing an actual time and place to play.  If kids are not into wargames then the industry will die when we do.

The other theory is that internet commerce (most especially eBay) is killing the store.  The last batch of reapers I got was about 300 figures for $300 in an auction.  Sure the figures were opened and some of them had to be stripped but at $1 per figure, how can you beat it?

The nature of the hobby is shifting - it can’t help it in the face of advancing technology - but my kids played miniatures and board games, as do my nephews, their friends, and youngsters at church who are a part of my gaming group. I also taught table top games as an after-school enrichment program for 4 years in two local middle schools. The local game store fills up on game nights too.

So it’s changing, yes but not dying.

I agree with Dentatus that the hobby is not dying—one look at the number of young people participating in various events at HMGS Conventions is proof of that.  I ran an after-school gaming group when my son was in 5th and 6th grades (a year ago).  Most of the kids had never seen miniatures before, although they had all played video games, and were blown away by how “cool” it was (so were their parents!), and there was a waiting list to enroll.  Several have since become committed hobbyists, resisting the siren song of XBox and its ilk.  For awhile young people were not, in fact, entering the hobby, as many old-timers gave no thought as to how to introduce newcomers to it.Let’s face it, trying to figure out where to begin can be pretty intimidating, as a number of newbies on the forums have stated.  This is no longer the case, with many books and websites (especially www.juniorgeneral.org ) designed specifically with younger people and newcomers in mind, and many convention games are now geared for those who have never played before.

I have noticed, however, that fewer miniatures are being carried by stores.  This is partially because of eBay and online sellers, but it is also because stocking ministures is incredibly expensive, both in terms of money and space: given the shear number of scales, styles, and varieties of miniatures available, to say nothing of terrain and similar products, the hobby shop owner is forced to guess as to what the local traffic is interested in buying.  If he’s wrong, he has a lot of stock that is not moving; and even if he guesses correctly, there is no guarantee that his customers will continue to be interested in the same scale and type of figures a month or two later.  There are still many vendors at conventions, of course, but I’ve noticed the great majority are the manufacturers themselves, not hobby shops per se.

I have no idea what the future may hold; did any of us foresee the effects of the Internet 10 years ago?

Chris Johnson

I will third that

My kids are into miniature gaming. I have also introduced it to a group of kids at church who also loved it.

But as noted-ebay & otehr online retailers of miniatures has been very destructive to the local hobby shop. But the attitude of the store management can also decide the outcome.

The main shop here in this area closed up 4 years ago. to me the 2 biggest factors in the closing were:

A: Price-minis were much cheaper online or at conventions.

B: A newer manager who though miniature games were dying and collectable card games & R/C cars/planes would take the place of minis. The shop stopped running back room mini games & kept shrinking the mini aisle. So the mini gamers went elsewhere

BUT another has sprung up & took its place. granted it is a comics store that sells minis,RPG, card games etc. But they keep growing the RPG & mini stock do a lot of back room gaming-which endeared them to the mini gaming crowd.

Since I started miniature wargaming I have shared it with others. I took four playing boards and figures and set them up at conventions, always with a set of fast and easy rules with a historical touch.

The game called DBA was perfect for this, kids could stop by and see others play, learn the rules for about 5 minutes and play for 15 to 30 minutes. At the end of the day hordes of kids had played a tournament and a couple of winners got their prices. But the best of it all, it wasnt just kids there, both grownups and kids was playing together.

Some of them got interested and is deep into the hobby today. I think it works the same way today. Meet them with some easy and furious games, have a casual attitude and the fun starts to grow.

The hobby gives them, lots of fun, historical and geographical awareness, a calm and nonviolent hobby and its good for the intellect.

//Carl-Johan Bachofner

CJ´s gamespot

I’ve been thinking seriously about getting and painting several DBA armies to play with my kids. I can likely knock a couple off in a couple of weekends, painting-wise.

I used to see pre-packaged DBA armies at cons and advertised on the web ... I’ll have to start searching for some of those.

The Editor - 01 January 2011 02:59 PM

I’ve been thinking seriously about getting and painting several DBA armies to play with my kids. I can likely knock a couple off in a couple of weekends, painting-wise.

I used to see pre-packaged DBA armies at cons and advertised on the web ... I’ll have to start searching for some of those.

Amongst many others, Essex miniatures have lots of pre-packaged DBA armies both 15 mm and 25 mm scale.

It´s nice to have a ready made playing area, some simple terrain, some armies to choose from, and just play for about 30 minutes to an hour.

Thats quality!

I have run a Middle Earth RPG group for family and friends for many years now starting when the kids were about 10 or so.  Over the years we typically had more kids than adults in the game.  Recently my son (now 22) and I have revitalized the old campaign and have a mostly new group of players.  Some of the the returning players (most in their early 20s) had played with us, or done their own DnD games when they were kids.  They all have played Collectible Card games and tons of video games.  However as adults, I find they not only love the miniature style play that I bring to my RPGs (terrain, minis, full table layout) but they are eager to try historical gaming as well.  It seems that, given the proper encouragement, kids can grow up to be adult miniature players.  Solving the problems facing hobby retailers these days is, I’m afraid, not so easy!

I’m 15 and I play historycal civil war with the uonion. but you do have a point about the stores and most of my freinds would rather play vid games.

A lot of what I was going to say was already said, so I won’t prattle repetitively here, LOL. I agree that wargaming and miniatures isn’t dying, but it is shifting i interest, but isn’t that the nature of change in general? The key for young folks is to get them interested in wargaming first, and not necessarily miniatures right off the bat. A simple game like “Memoir ‘44” can spur the initial interest, and the playing pieces are mini-miniatures, if you know what I mean. I think you then have the best chance to get them to see the true worth and enjoyment of wargames.

I too look around the convention circuit and see a lot of young kids playing all ranges of games. It’s not bleak, but it can get away from all of us if we don’t encourage the yooung to put down the computer console games and sit down with a living, breathing human.

Great thread.

I live in the southwest and 20 years ago at least then you could already tell historical miniatures were being moved off the shelves for other forms.  I cant object at all to miniature wargaming staying alive I am only saddened it is not something I choose to play. Even large scale fantasy ‘Warmaster’ has already faded away.  I stumbled on this post as I happen to be traveling to MS and was hoping to find a store carrying historicals but my hope is not high. If there is anything to share please do as ill be in KC, central and northern MS. Otherwise I will be forced to continue to order from the UK online.