Future of Army Builder?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Mansfield" <steve@gametools.com>

> But that aside, if they're such money-grubbing parasites, why do you
continue
> playing the game?
>

In a word: equity. The process of purchasing an army and painting it
creates a certain amount of equity in your army. If you quit playing, then
you lose this equity.

SO, when the rules change or game abilities change from edition to edition
only to sell more miniatures...people get angry. Unfortunately, a person's
only choice is to stop playing (and lose their equity) or to continue
playing, often "under protest."

BUT, that one change is not the end of the story! There will be another,
and another, or perhaps the army you've collected goes they way of the dodo
(Squats and Chaos Dwarves come to mind) OR the army you've collected is
split and suddenly the mummies you had can't be used alongside your vampires
any more. Unfortunately, a person's only choice is to stop playing (and
lose their equity) or to continue playing, often "under protest."

As you can see, to continue creates EVEN MORE equity and harder to quit
until one day...the final straw is reached and all that anger finally turns
to hatred. I have started to look for rulesets that are "no equity loss"
(NEL)...otherwise known as generic. The premise is that you can use ANY
company's miniatures to play the game and fit them into ANY army you can
develop.

Historicals are a NEL option because if you hate Napoleon's Battles, maybe
Volley & Bayonet is the thing, or maybe Grande Armee. In these cases the
army is still viable for any rules. For Fanatasy and Sci Fi, I play NEL
games like Fantasy Rules!, Shock Force, Stargrunt, Full Thrust. If the
system has a "design your own..." section you're all set.

Once a person knows there is a NEL option, suddenly the world is your
oyster...in fact, you can continue to play GW games (if you want) knowing
that you can always play the NEL game which would preserve your investment.

Oh and many of the NEL games like Fanatasy Rules! have army builder files
available.
John
E-mail & WM: jlmartin@wi.rr.com
URL: http://home.wi.rr.com/jlmartin
"It is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it."
Robert E. Lee



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