Once upon a Wednesday: golden age

I wrote this rather long article early in the life of this blog. Way back in 2013 I was questioning whether miniatures were on the cusp of a golden age.

The internet has been a great boon to niche interests, and miniature wargames are no exception. On the hobby side there are places to chat, blogs and project logs to read, and clubs to join. There are also many vendors and many businesses all able to better reach their target audience, and for less money than before. Wargames are still a niche and probably always will be, but niche doesn’t have to mean cottage industry. There are now more professional companies making better products than ever before.

This was the key at the time I think – miniatures moved from a cottage industry to a professional one. These days limited and chaotic releases are mostly the stuff of the past, and the industry has expanded to support more businesses than before.

Games Workshop – a company I had no interest in buying from in 2013 – have gone from strength to strength, and are still going. The D&D miniatures from the likes of Nolzur’s and Wizkids are selling like hot cakes. There’s licensed games like Star Wars and Game of Thrones. Plus a whole bunch of miniatures-based board games producing their own high quality stock.

There’s even updates of old favourites around.

These days I think miniatures are in a great place. I ended by looking at what was then just an emerging technology:

The snowball is still rolling down the hill, and I don’t know where this ends, or what the snowball will look like when we get there. 3D printing looks like the next evolution. The idea of buying miniatures essentially as plans or sprue diagrams before printing them out at home does appeal, and I think it will bolster rather than replace the existing retail chain.

I feel secure in saying that 3D printing thanks to items like the Elegoo is simply part of the industry now. Sure enough, the retail side seems bigger to me now too.