My weird hobby opinion is that Golden Demon, and other wargame miniature painting competitions, should require non-diorama/duel categories to be entered on the legal sized wargame bases, and not on over the top and intricate plinths or other stands.

If you want to make a diorama base, fine, enter it in the diorama category - single mini, and squad entries should remain playable gaming pieces.

Frostgrave has a setting and a tiny bit of lore and it is like soil for the garden of the imagination. I love it.

Here's a weird opinion... I don't play wargames, have never played a wargame, and have zero interest in wargames. I just love miniatures.

there is a BIG difference between 'wargaming' and 'miniature wargaming' ... miniature wargaming is actually a sub-category of the former and actually has a much longer history. Battletech is just a 'wargame' in a more traditional sense, but that doesn't make it a 'board game' - no one is having a casual game night with some kreigspiel or Advanced squad leader.

The opinions are considerably less weird than I expected, I don't know why I was expecting hot takes, these are all perfectly reasonable personal preferences.

After recently switching to classic BattleTech, I will never go back to measuring movement ever again. It was the #1 opponents would try to cheat me in Warhammer.

The thing about Classic Battletech is that there's absolutely nothing preventing you from using actual 3D terrain, it's just that classically that terrain was not as commercially available as it is today. There's a huge market for 3D printed hex terrain for Battletech (check out Hextech, it's great), not to mention the bunches of others that have been around for awhile. It does add more immersion to the game when playing it, but it's also one more thing to have to deal with packing out and putting on the table, so I can sorta get why some old-school players would prefer just to use the static 2D maps. That said, CGL themselves don't market Classic Battletech as a wargame, pretty sure they call it a board game and reserve the "wargame" title for Alpha Strike. Classic Battletech has, in my mind, always been sort of a category onto itself: it's not quite a wargame, and not quite a board game, and not quite a tabletop RPG, but somewhere between all three.

I agree about Space Weirdos. I recently "reskinned" Space Weirdos as "Western Weirdos" on almost a one for one rule basis. We had a blast and it felt quite like a Western game.

A game like Squad Leader and all those games that normally have unit chits and hexes, I'd say, are pretty solidly in the wargame space, whether or not that distinct from board games. I guess when I think of board games they can encompass wargames if you like, but board games tend to be a bit less specific simulation and more simulation of systems

I know the tradition is to see people hunched over lichen trees and plaster rocks, so I get it. I just don't know if I'd draw the line there, maybe that it's a butterfly-moth situation, where it's harder to argue that it's not a wargame if it's about terrain and measurement, because that tends to be war and not wedding logistics, but the war part also holds a lot of weight, even if the type of measurement and the abstraction of terrain is different. Like if you played Squad Leader with minis representing units I don't think it would lose the wargame status.

But if you are into the craft of it, and you're a bit cold about chits on hex maps, it's less wargames specifically and more just you like the stuff you like, I guess.

Totally agree with you on the bases, though

As for integrated bases, while I don't go out of my way to get some, they can be useful for minis with spindly legs as it gives a larger surface to attach them to a proper base.

On that thought, the only minis with integrated bases I've seen these days come with an actual base: namely Frostgrave and Perry Miniatures

I agree I don't want my goblins balanced or good I want them insanely random and swingy. I would rather lose 7/10 games and the ones I win are chaos haha

The last one is why Wargames Atlantic make their own bases. One side is flush with the rim and textured for puddle-less minis, the other is deep enough to be flush with the height of their integrated puddle bases. You still need to add some basic material to the gaps, but at least you don't end up with a bunch of baseball pitchers.

I like the integrated bases because they cover up the hole in the washer

There should be a stick of deodorant in every Games Workshop box.

Fun fact, integrated bases were the reason why GW invented the slotta base, which ultimately led to separate plastic bases becoming the industry standard. Basically Someone at GW (I've heard Brian Ansell but not 100% sure) figured out in a cast pewter mini the base accounted for roughly 25% of the total metal used in the mini, and that if they used plastic bases instead they could use less metal and therefore make more minis for the same cost

Definitely agree with the 2 separate rulesets one. It can be easy in any PvP hobby for competitive players to steamroll casual players who didn't realize they were supposed to treat a game competitively. Different rulesets is a good way to try and keep that from happening, I think

As a shop-owner, your opinion on casual vs ranked/tourney play is a great one.  The two things we've noticed are that casuals tend to make up 70% of the market for most of these minis games, but tourney players make up 80-85% of the "noise" about the game. It leads to a disparity of how a game is perceived by the devs, and leads focuses that drive the casuals away from playing... brining the sales down and killing games (X-wing 2.0, War-ma-hordes, etc)

The whole thing on 3d terrain I also agree with personally, and it's how I convinced Randal that "classic" btech was a board game and that it belonged under Catalyst's Boardgame division (for all of 2 minutes, until we relinquished control... cause who wants to deal with those agents ;) )

Very good video. I started my miniatures wargaming when I was a kid back in the fifties. I put together WWII models and soldiers, made my own rules, and just had fun.

Modular multipart models are better than the dynamic single pose miniatures we now get. Was a breath of fresh air to put together some GW Night Goblins and Frostgrave Cultists! Better kitbash potential too.

I actually like integrated bases.  I sand the bottoms of all my bases, so they stick really nicely.