Is Chainmail dead?

[Bhadrak]

When Chainmail first came out, I bought a bunch of Chainmail stuff. I gave the game a try, thought to myself, "Well, it's okay, not great, but okay." Then I just used the minis for D+D and never took another look at the rules.

A few months after that, I noticed one of the local game stores running a league, so I figured, what the heck, I'd give it another shot.

And you know what?

The game is a heck of a lot of fun. It's quick, tactical, and familiar if you know 3E.

I for one am glad WotC made the attempt and will be disappointed if the line is indeed canceled.

 

[Drew]

Chainmail is a great deal of fun. I think that you guys, being big fans of D&D in general, would enjoy it a lot. Play Chainmail. Chainmail is fun.

I wouldn't take the word of a gaming shop on the future of a product. Gaming shop owners, despite their best intentions, are generally full of crap. Sorry, but its true. Until we hear this from WotC, or at least from a large number of sources, based on more than hearsay, I say this is BS.

Drew

 

[Giant_Monster]

Hmm

I don't know if its dead or not but my local retailer is selling all chainmail stuff for 50% off.

 

[trancejeremy]

I thought this idea was stupid to begin with. Why go into a heavily competitive, high overhead, niche hobby???

Didn't they learn anything from Warhammer's terrible foray into RPGing??

Stick to roleplaying games.

Well, they likely looked at the success of Wiz Kids, and the success of Games Workshop, and thought they could get a piece of the pie by using the D&D tie in as leverage...

It didn't fail completely, but it probably wasn't as huge success, because it neither beats MK nor Warhammer at what they do, but sort of fits in the middle.

I mean, on the one hand, they're still expensive and you have to paint them, so people like me (who are broke and can't paint and don't want to) won't be interested in it. (I do have about 125 or so MK figs, which cost remarkably little)

OTOH, they don't quite have the snob appeal for the hard core wargaming market. Even though the minis nice, they're not from GW, so are often considered as being less than worthy. And the game itself is on a rather dinky scale - hard core wargamers like fielding huge armies, because they look impressive.

Still, the whole thing is probably profitable for WOTC. Just probably not profitable enough, though.

 

[Black Omega]

I would be curious to see how well the game did over all. I know in my area people bought some stuff initially, then it pretty much died totally.

 

[Disciple of Darwin]

Re: Hmm

I don't know if its dead or not but my local retailer is selling all chainmail stuff for 50% off.

My local WOTC store had the entire line at 25% off as well. I found that troubling as I really enjoy the game.

(On an unrelated note, they had a whole bunch of RPG books at 50% off, including Sov. Stone, Star Wars, Wheel of Time, etc. I don't know what was up with that).

 

[thatdarncat]

Re: Hmm

I don't know if its dead or not but my local retailer is selling all chainmail stuff for 50% off.

So's one of my local stores. 50% or better off. I considered picking some up, but I'd rather buy someone's collection and get a good number of pieces.

Time to check E-Bay I guess

 

[EOL]

I have to agree with those people who wanted it to be a massed combat system. Essentially you're looking at combats which are about the same size as a normal D&D combat so I could see maybe using the chainmail rules to speed up normal combat, but I can't see playing as an entirely seperate game something so similar to a game I already play. But since I occasionally want to run a mass combat with the PC's having rules for that might be nice. Lord knows I've tried to do it myself often enough.

 

[estevans_lackey]

"I have to agree with those people who wanted it to be a massed combat system."

EOL, you took the words right out of my keyboard.

As far as I'm concerned, it was never alive to begin with.

 

[BluWolf]

Just checked my local Wizard's store. They are also doing 25% of all TSR minis, Star Wars & Chain mail. They have also marked down a lot of roleplaying books but not in any consistnet manner (words of the manager).

Maybe all this discounting has more to do with the stores going away rather than the games???

Frankly, I think the minis gmae AND the stores are a bad idea.

Just a thought.