Show Notes
6-24-14
Intro
- Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube! Join our Forums, too! If you would like to be a guest on the show, email Reece at Contact@FrontlineGaming.org
- We sell tabletop games and supplies at 20% off! Hit us up for your next gaming order at Orders@FrontlineGaming.org or visit our webstore at FrontlineGaming.org.
News
- FAT Mat Australian Distribution
- Pre-Order Special still in effect through June 29th
- BAO News
- Draconic Awards
- 40K Champs is almost sold out, 3/4 full
- 40K Friendly
- Paint Classes
- Warmahordes
- Warzone Demos
- DzC Demos and Tournament
- Check out Eric Lofgren’s articles on the LVO, very interesting analysis.
- Toughest Girls in the Galaxy has some more cool releases!
- Soda Pop Miniatures releases a new mini that looks pretty cool.
- Ironheart Artisans has a really good deal on pre-painted shipping containers, check them out.
- Pacific Con and Gabriel “Mondo” Vega.
Rumors: The Rumor Section is gathered from the web and is not in any way information we receive from any manufacturer nor is it necessarily accurate. This section of the podcast is intended for entertainment purposes only.
- Rumors of Ghazghull Thraka supplement for Orks coming out in the near future.
- A new named Ork character, Warboss Grukk, is supposed to be coming out in white dwarf and is a part of the Red WAAGH!! It will be interesting to see what that means.
Rant Session
Tactics Corner
- Warlord no longer has to be an HQ choice.
- Rethink old strategies. A lot has changed.
Rules Lawyer
- Be sure to read the FAQs! A lot of stuff has changed.
- An Imperial Knight Detachment is only 1-3 Knights now.
- Brotherhood Banner for the Grey Knights no longer makes Force automatically go off.
- Older books lost their specific psychic powers and are now using BRB powers.
List Review
Anyway I threw this together for your consideration.
Hive Tyrant: Flyrant.
Hive Tyrant: Flyrant.
Venomthrope Brood: 1
Venomthrope Brood: 1
Termagants: 9 Devourers, 21 Fleshborers.
Tervigon: Miasma Cannon, Electroshock Grubs, Cluster Spines (Not totally sold on the Miasma but thought it would give her something to do in the Backfield)
3x Mawlocs
Formation: Living Artillery Node
3x Warriors: Barbed Strangler
3x Biovores
Can… can you guys not push the Raging Heros/Soda Pop stuff? Their minis, while well-made, are pretty “LOL TITS” obnoxious and there’s plenty of other companies that do much better female sculpts.
I think that is the point…
Yes, what I’m saying is that perhaps it shouldn’t be.
Why not?
Because people don’t generally react well to being objectified and the last thing this hobby needs is worse public perception of it and more ways to drive away female gamers?
Raging Heroes is pretty tasteful as far as female minis go, IMO, but Soda Pop is pure T&A, yes, haha.
Eh, I would disagree pretty strongly there- RH minis virtually all feature the same suite of features: visible chest, comic book-y “show off my ass and tits at the same time” poses, etc. Half of them couldn’t manage to find a whole shirt, and about half of the rest couldn’t find an entire pair of pants to wear. There’s certainly a few that break that mold, but the vast majority of them are defined by it.
Like I said, they’re very good work on a technical level, but on an aesthetic level they are pretty obnoxious.
I suppose that comes down to the values of the observer. I take no issue with Raging Heroes any more than I do with a Barbie doll, which also presents an unrealistic female aesthetic.
My barometer isn’t as sensitive as yours in this case, although I do understand your perspective.
Please don’t censor your news section- I like it just the way it is. The same goes for the show humor- don’t censor it; don’t change it. The primary reason I listen to your podcast is because of how candid you and Frankie are- keep up the good work.
My suggestion is, as a consumer, you don’t like a product, or the company responsible for a product, vote with your wallet.
If it were a listing of all of the new products that have been released it would be a different matter, but Frontline seems to be placing a particular focus on Raging Heroes (and maybe Soda Pop? I’m less sure on that front.) Drawing specific attention to something isn’t really the same as not censoring.
Moreover, telling a company- and yes, Frontline is a company- that you don’t like a particular aspect of what they’re doing is also a part of business. The image it projects is just as important as anything else and by highlighting the RH and SP stuff, effectively saying “we think this is what gaming culture should, at least in part, look like” does them any favors.
Of course we are a company, we don’t reject that. And I love Raging Heroes minis, I love their fantasy line, the SciFi line, etc. both male and female figures. We don’t talk about Soda Pop as much but I have nothing against them.
You are free to interpret our opinions as you choose, of course, but I think you are being overly sensitive to it, honestly. The male figure is totally gender stereotyped and exaggerated in mins, too. It is a part of the aesthetic. I don’t take any of it seriously enough to worry about how it impacts our views on sex, gender, etc.
The male figures are stereotyped, sure, but “these figures represent male power fantasies” and “these other figures represent male sexual fantasies” isn’t exactly being even-handed. Some of the RH sculpts I’m totally fine with- but the Toughest Girls stuff in particular is a really bad example of what they sometimes do wrong.
It may come across to you as over-sensitivity, but I think it’s worth pointing out that only a miniscule fraction of the the mini wargaming players are female. There are lots of female Magic players, female RPG players, female video gamers, and so on, but female wargamers? Rather rare. It can’t be blamed wholly on these sorts of design choices, but I don’t think you can hold them entirely blameless, either. It’s not a matter of “taking it seriously,” it’s a matter of how it portrays the hobby. People from the groups in question DO notice that sort of thing- maybe you don’t, and that’s wholly understandable- you look at the minis and see a bunch of white guys (and things that are designed to appeal to white guys) and hey, what’s the problem? But for people who aren’t white and male, it’s a subtle (but undeniable) signal.
Wow, now we’re bringing race into it, too? haha, might as well throw religion into the mix, too, while we’re at it! =P
I agree with you in principal, and I feel that there is a lot going on under the radar that most folks are not aware of, however, that is true in everything, not just minis games. But, just like I like action movies which do the same thing, and comic books which often do the same thing, etc. I appreciate minis games for what they are: a diversion. They aren’t intended to be social commentary and if you are aware of the stereotypes then they have no control over your perceptions.
Females in fantasy are almost always depicted as overly sexualized and unrealistically, as are males. We joke about it on the show all the time, particularly with companies like kingdom Death which goes WAY over the top with it. I find it funny, myself, as I don’t think it is anything more than a simple toy/model.
I am all for a diverse field of gamers in terms of race, gender, etc. and agree that we can be conscious of the impact our games make. For example, everyone always jokes about my armies because I paint them up to be culturally diverse. my Mariens are dark skinned, all of my IG are different skin tones from black to brown to white to yellow, etc. because I made the choice to do that. However, not everyone makes that choice which is fine as this is a game and not intended for anything other than that and a lot of it is about stylized Aesthetics. We aren’t using these to teach children about gender roles, we’re using them to play a game and have some fun. If that means girls that look like super models in chain mail bikinis, oh well, they are still depicted as empowered women who kick ass. Like Xena, sexy and feminine, but still powerful. It’s all just exaggerated. I personally can’t wait to get some Raging Heroes super space warrior babes to go along with my multi-ethnic steroid freak space Catachans!
I kinda thought this would die off but since it didn’t, as a customer I feel now I also need to make my voice heard: I do not wish you to ‘censor’ the news you provide regarding what miniatures are being released.
If you did stop providing information based on what could be construed as sexually, culturally or in any other method offensive I feel we as the customers would be robbed of an opportunity to decide for ourselves how we should vote with our own dollars; moreover I feel if you defined your release information by such criteria you would not be able to provide any information on the show at all.
I suspect the majority of your customers and listeners probably agree they want information on these releases.
I agree. I often will be searching for news and find minis that are really funny or extreme in some way and I grabs my attention so I want to share it based on the qualities it has like being super retro, or stupidly sexual, or whatever. It’s more about grabbing our attention for a moment than anything else. If something is really high quality from our POV, we definitely promote it though, for sure.
Again, choosing not to point something out isn’t censorship. There are dozens of model releases that they don’t talk about between each episode, and I would hardly say they are “censoring” those companies.
We talk about things that grab our attention, or that we find funny, or well done, or simply weird like the Mushroom Monk, lol. Your perception of our opinions may vary of course, but we pick models that jump out at us–for whatever reason–to talk about.
What companies make better female armies. Please point me in their direction.
http://victoriaminiatures.highwire.com/
http://www.hfminis.co.uk/
http://www.statuesqueminiatures.co.uk/
http://www.chapterhousestudios.com/
To name a few.
I would love to see RH do some sculpts that aren’t just excuses for scantily-clad women, because their other stuff is really well-made. And if it were just _some_ of the figures, it would be something I could live with- but almost every single one of them is wearing some sort of crop-top, cleavage-cutout, assless chaps, or some other ridiculous thing and all of the armor is boobplates, and it’s really disheartening.
An all-female regiment a la the Nachthexen or other, similar Soviet units in WW2 would be awesome. “OMG TITS AND HEELS” brigade is rather less so.
You forgot one!
http://brother-vinni.com/
He’s got some nice stuff, but if we’re looking at female minis that aren’t just pure fanservice, he doesn’t come even close to qualifying. His “female jungle brigade” makes the RH minis look overdressed.
These are my damsels in distress objectives for my Knights. 🙂
I quite like the tits and heels brigade name lol i might name a platoon after that!
Really? Your complaining about T&A? Go turn in your card lol
You have to be a pretty sad excuse for a human being to believe that “not being actively offensive to other people” is somehow a negative quality.
Agreed with the message on the con artist.. you guys are nothing but class so this message is to be taken seriously. ALSO REECE.. glad you are finally coming towards the great devourer 🙂 I too am excited about some lists.. can’t wait to work with you on them.
Does making a man a knight make him a better fighter?….Yes!
Interesting about the Knight Detachment… What does that mean for the BAO? Could I run a Knight Detachment + Allied Detachment, or do I now need to run a CAD + Knight Detachment to be legal?
I’d love to know that too:)
Excited to hear some Tyranid talk going on, it was a rough patch there and the hive mind missed you Reece, we sent a mix tape, flowers and everything…well tyranid flowers which is just a dozen gaunts turned inside out but it looks like flowers…Glad you still love us.
I’ll sing the praises of dakkafexes all day, if you haven’t tried them in your nid list yet you’re doing yourself a disservice. Also the carnifex kit is the reason I fell in love with tyranids in the first place, it’s got a ton of options and is beautifully made and one of the only places you’ll find MC devourer arms. Which is funny…or maybe sad… since, like you mentioned, you could rename our book Codex TL devourer and not be far off, no idea why I’m not drowning in MC TL dev arms, I guess so FW could charge us 20 bucks a pop for them, but I digress.
Probably the biggest change 7th brought that got my juices flowing was the scoring changes. Rippers being OS and able to deepstrike, or infiltrate them with a sneakily traited warlord onto some objectives offers up some interesting combos. I’ll have to see how they fare before I run all rippers or something crazy. While I’m excited to use basically a free unit that came with my gaunts I’m also kind of upset half the troops in my collection suck now or have sucked to the point of disuse in the past.
What’s the pricing for shipping for AU battle mats? is it still $70 USD per mat? There’s no reference to it in the show notes, the product page lists the price ass $70, and google doesn’t help me much. Is there a link to AU shipping price?
Another change you may have missed, now for Apocalyptic Mega Blasts you use the 5/7/10″ template, not the 5/10/15″ template. You now only get to use the repositionable barrage template and the 5/10/15″ Apoc Mega Blast in games of Apocalypse.
From the “Blast Markers and Templates” section:
“This set contained an apocalyptic barrage marker that you could twist into different shapes and an apocalyptic mega-blast marker that was 15″ in diameter. If you are playing a game of Apocalypse and you have these blast markers available, you should use them in your game exactly as described in the rules section of the Apocalypse rulebook.”
We did see that, yes, but thanks for bringing it up.
Okay, this is a bit from the blue, but question on BAO ruling: do the Promethium Pipelines get the same “can be placed near other terrain” exception that the Aegis Defense Lines do? It seems like it would be really hard to use them otherwise.
Most likely, I will check.
Umm .ni don’t really care about the objectifying of women or any of that… But can you please stop promoting war games. It’s very unsesative to the peace loving American public. We are currently in a very messy war in Iraq and Afganistan and these companies that objectify war as glorious are the root cause of all warfare and strife . By promoting these companies you yourself become a warmonger………
Of course I’m not being serious … How can anyone hold a company or brand responsible for the problem of a culture if all they are doing is providing their customer base with a product that they are asking for . Before you get all huffy and puffy at a miniatures company for producing ” objectifying ” models please look at their target demographic . If 99.999% of miniatures were purchased by 40 yr old women then the market would have a difference face. As it stands the majority of miniature war gamers are males between 14-45 .. Guess what we like??
Guess where our money will go? .