D&D General Why Isn't There a D&D Table Top Miniatures War Game?

[Warpiglet-7]

There was also Dungeon Command as well as D&D branded Heroscape.
And since Magic and D&D are now intermingled, Arena of the Planeswalkers might count, too (it even had unpainted minis in addition to the badly painted ones).

Yes—-I bought all 5 boxes. Frankly it is still unpunched though I took out all the orc minis for general use. They are quite good orcs.

One problem I hear is that its entry point really requires the purchase of multiple boxes. Of course being prepainted etc. that entry point was not all that high…

 

[Meech17]

Warriors of Krynn was launched last year and while I've never played it, I've heard from a few people that it's a lot of fun. Though I think it's more of a board game than a war game.

Regardless, it apparently didn't sell. It, alongside of the Campaign Cases are flooding the shelves of the overstock store Ollie's for $9.99.

You'd think a mini-based game would be a solid idea. The minis can pull double duty selling for both the game, as well as D&D. My FLGS has a wall covered in minis, and a good quarter of it is WOTC D&D branded ones. So they're making them.

 

[payn]

Up until 5E, I think the worry would be splitting the base into two markets that wouldn't really be profitable.

 

[Jer]

Battlesystem - came with paper counters (or later, just a book), very limited range of minis (meanwhile, WHFB was well established)
Dragon Dice - dice, not minis
Chainmail (2001+) - unpainted, unassembled metal miniatures in an age dominated by GW plastics and Mageknight pre-paints.
Heroscape D&D - only two boxed sets, at a time that popularity for the game had fallen away
D&D minis - Merged into 4E and killed. Also, prices for plastic suddenly skyrocketed, and demand fell away (until revived by Wizkids)
Dungeon Command - A couple boxed sets with no expansions
D&D Attack Wing - Never caught on
Warriors of Krynn - too complicated, limited scenarios with no supported expansion beyond ties to the DL module
D&D Onslaught - who even knows about it?

What's interesting is that with the exception of Battlesystem every other war game they've sold has been a skirmish game. In general concentrating on having synergy with the RPG with the kinds of battles you run in a skirmish game being similar to what you'd do in a roleplaying session. Explicitly with the Chainmail, 3.5 D&D minis and later D&D Heroscape they were trying to double dip the minis between people who would buy them for the skirmish game and people who would buy them to use for RP. There's overlap in those two groups but they were hoping to get people to buy who were outside of that overlap.

They've never really tried to do a Warhammer style large scale battle game outside of some board games since BattleSystem. And BattleSystem wasn't like Warhammer - it wasn't like you played BattleSystem with only "official" AD&D branded miniature - if you used minis at all and didn't just use chits.

 

[GuyBoy]

Although it often criticised, there was the Swords & Spells rulebook.
My friends and I played out many battles in the very late 1970s and early 80s, combining all our old Ral Partha, Citadel, Asgard and other miniatures to fight battles. Great memories.

 

[Stormonu]

They've never really tried to do a Warhammer style large scale battle game outside of some board games since BattleSystem. And BattleSystem wasn't like Warhammer - it wasn't like you played BattleSystem with only "official" AD&D branded miniature - if you used minis at all and didn't just use chits.

Part of the problem with Battlesystem was finding minis to use at all. Waldenbooks and the like sure didn't carry any minis at the time, and Ral Partha only made a handful of sets for the system (I have the gnolls set, myself). If you wanted to make an army of miniatures you either had to buy multiples of singles (a fairly expensive proposition at the time) or hope you had a FLGS that also had a decent historical minis section (mine did not).

Or you'd nab WHFB armies to use for your minis, and in that case might as well grab their rule system as well.

 

[Stormonu]

Illegal 3D printing is slowly killing tabletop wargames.

You're funny.
3D printing is simply untying rules IP from the minis themselves.
There is nothing "illegal" about 3D printing in of itself, and even the big model makers are using 3D printing themselves.
More than anything, 3D printing is moving the industry back towards an age where the rules writers and the model makers were two (or more) separate entities, not one selling both.

 

[the Jester]

Illegal 3D printing is slowly killing tabletop wargames.

What are you talking about? What illegal 3D printing?

 

[payn]

What are you talking about? What illegal 3D printing?

I think they mean folks getting their hands on stl files and printing their own instead of buying authorized minis. I know that many miniature tournaments require "official" brand minis.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

What's interesting is that with the exception of Battlesystem every other war game they've sold has been a skirmish game. In general concentrating on having synergy with the RPG with the kinds of battles you run in a skirmish game being similar to what you'd do in a roleplaying session. Explicitly with the Chainmail, 3.5 D&D minis and later D&D Heroscape they were trying to double dip the minis between people who would buy them for the skirmish game and people who would buy them to use for RP. There's overlap in those two groups but they were hoping to get people to buy who were outside of that overlap.

They've never really tried to do a Warhammer style large scale battle game outside of some board games since BattleSystem. And BattleSystem wasn't like Warhammer - it wasn't like you played BattleSystem with only "official" AD&D branded miniature - if you used minis at all and didn't just use chits.

Basically yes—-we use D&D to model D&D skirmishes.

Would enjoy true mass battle resolution with mixed groups of troops/monsters for 5e