WWX: Dixon's Learning Game

Things have been very busy for me lately with work and family life colliding and eating up most of my hobby time. On the rare recent days when I have had time to partake in some hobby time I turned my attention toward building and painting my WWX models in preparation for Adepticon. After a particularly brutal week at work I found myself sitting on the couch Saturday past, contemplating getting more models painted. I realized I had not played a game in almost a month and got in touch with John and Dixon, convincing them to head to Huzzah Hobbies to play some WWX.

Dixon has only played one game of WWX previously, participating in a 3 way game with John and I. As he showed up first, he and I decided to get a head-to-head game in so he could learn the game more. This was officially his first learning game. Dixon really wants to play the Firefly crew in WWX, so I brought out those models along with Jesse James as his boss. Lacking Bill Brocius (as a Badger stand in) and Abe Lincoln (who was Dixon's first choice but cannot lead the Wayward 8), Jesse was Dixon's choice.

I have a couple names I could label this battle report and this game. Dixon's Learning game is the politest choice so is where I am settling. Equally fitting would be "The game where Bill Show's everything NOT to do", but that was a bit long. I almost went with "The one where Dixon almost flips a table", which while accurate is also a bit long. All that said, here we go:

Dixon's Learning Game

We found ourselves with a nice quiet Saturday afternoon to grab a game. As we were playing $750-points and focused mostly on learning, Dixon and I decided on a 4x4 table set up as you see above. I wanted a bit of a town street for us to play on. Aiming for simplification, we also went with the Shoot Out scenario. This scenario is a straight forward "Kill em All" scenario, which is a bit boring for how we prefer playing but is also very easy to learn with.

Dixon is very partial (as mentioned above) to the Firefly based Wayward 8 crew. His list was as follows:

• Jesse James
• Mal (Marcus Wayward)
• Zoe (Zarelda Kincade)
• Inara (Sierra Icarus)
• River (Flowing River)
• Dark Council Member 

In Dixon's first game he was able to get a nice look at how shooting works in WWX. He really wanted to see how Close Combat stacked up as well. Due to this and the models I had remaining, I chose to go with Warrior Nation with the following list:

• Sitting Bull
• Sky Spirit
• Walks Looking
• Marcus Cunningham
• Simon (Sun Totem)
• Crossbow Brave
• Spirit Totem

 I setup with Sky Spirit hiding behind a building to the left of my deployment and the rest as you see them in the picture. The game was really set for Dixon and I to just charge at each-other and see where the chips fall. This is typically a mistake for the non-Warrior Nation player, as things will go very south if Sitting Bull, Walks, and Marcus can pile into an opponent quickly. Alas, this worked better for Dixon than for me.

Turn 1

Turn 1 initiative landed on Dixon, who had fewer models than I did. This was a bit of a change for me, as I typically have the smaller model counts. Dixon activated his dark council (who must activate first) and Inara, giving Inara his influence and then moving them both forward. The DC hid behind the building and Inara moved up around the building to get some LOS across the street. Inara had no one in LOS at the start of her activation (only Walks and Simon were visible to her, who each have Living Spirit) so could not use her mesmerizing ability. I proceeded to move forward with Cunningham and toss out his smoke cloud, burning some influence to put it where I wanted. Dixon moved Mal up, then moved Jesse forward and took out my spirit totem which was parked behind cover in the middle of the board. I moved Simon, my crossbow, and Sitting Bull forward into and around the cloud. I moved Sky Spirit up and took a pot-shot at Inara (missing due to her DC influence). Dixon then activated Zoe and River, using Zoe to hand River 2 AP and walking her 14 inches forward. He followed up with walking River twice more, parking her within an inch of the crossbow brave and taking a swing at him. My luck held out and I negated the swing and with a life saving dodge. In return Walks Looking moseyed over to River and proceeded to remove her from the board with extreme prejudice.

At the end of the turn our Dead piles did not look too bad (mine on the left and Dixon's on the right)

Turn 2

Turn 2 ended up being a bloody mess of mistakes and table flipping outbursts. Ok, no tables were flipped during this game but it seemed like it was a close thing.

Turn 2 opened with my getting initiative and activating Simon. I aimed and took a shot at Jesse who was just at the edge of Simon's range. I hit and only put 1 point of damage on him, but achieved my goal of using Interference to shutdown Jesse's Guns. Upon explaing to Dixon what Interference does in combination with his gaining an understanding of how smoke works, he proceeded to have a bit of a tantrum at this point. This was to the point he decided (at this point) there was no way he could accomplish anything in the game so we should just pick up the models and he would concede to me.

It's important to realize that in between turn 1 and 2 John showed up and Dixon had spent a lot of time talking about how excited he was to use Inara. I usually would have done a joint activation of Simon and Sky Spirit, (with possibly the crossbow brave), targeting Inara and trying to remove her in conjunction with shutting down Jesse. I chose not to do this in an effort to give Dixon a chance to play around with a model he was excited to use. This proceeded to contribute to the trouncing I took in this game. Additionally, had John not shown up and helped me "talk Dixon off the ledge" the game would most likely have ended at this point with Dixon deciding WWX was not a great game to play due to a prevalence of "hard counters" making it "rock/paper/scissors". John worked on talking Dixon through all the good things Mal and Zoe could still accomplish in the game, removing my second typical target (Mal) from the equation as I wanted Dixon to experience a fun game. It just seemed like a dick move to have John talk up Mal's assets and then remove the model with Sky Spirit before he got to use him.

So, that brings in the rest of the turn. Tantrum subsided we moved on with Dixon's activation. He activated the Dark Council and Inara, giving Inara the DC Influence and then moving the DC out to the middle of the board. Inara went On the Lookout, using John's advice on how to stop a charge by Sitting Bull by knocking him prone.  Sky Spirit moved into the smoke cloud and took a couple shots at Zoe (using the weaker multi-shot) to not much effect. Jesse moved forward to take cover behind a ruined wall. The crossbow brave took some pot-shots at Inara and did very little. Marcus walked forward (trying to draw Inara's shots but failing) and redeployed the smoke cloud, missing a bit where I wanted it. Zoe gave Mal her AP and Mal unloaded with 5 aimed shots on Sitting Bull, which I barely survived through using the bulk of my influence. Walk's moved out (again looking to draw Inara's on-the-lookout) and moved toward Inara. I succeeded at drawing out Inara's shots, but due to bad influence rolls on my behalf and good shots on Dixons, Walk's was removed as dead.

This left Sitting Bull left to activate, and I made another mistake. Instead of waiting for more influence I moved out to engage Jesse with my 2 remaining influence. On activation Sitting Bull took 9 points of fire damage and then I moved on Jesse. Dixon still had a bunch of influence left and Jesse was not affected by interference. I chose to forgo my "attack on engagement" to avoid his quick-draw response. I moved straight into my second AP, launching 6 claw strikes against Jesse in an attempt to draw out Dixon's influence. I landed 5 damage on Jesse, and then decided to use my last AP to launch 3 bites at him. My thought being if I was lucky and got the kill I could clean up with Jesse's activation. I was not lucky, with Dixon negating all but 1 of the bite damage.  The turn ended with me in a pretty bad position, essentially guaranteed to lose Sitting Bull at the start of turn 3.

Our dead piles were starting to grow, and by our I mean mine (to the left).

Turn 3

Turn 3 was not much of a surprise to me, although I stuck in and tried to do the best possible. Dixon won initiative and started with Mal, Zoe, and the Dark Council. The DC gave his influence to Inara then Zoe gave her AP to Mal, who proceeded to unload on Sitting Bull. Copious Influence negated 6 shots before Mal finally put the wolf down and drained my of all my remaining influence. Mal finished out his turn by shooting his remaining shots at Marcus and removing him from the game as well, removing his smoke cloud with him. I activated all my models together in a last ditch effort to give myself a chance. Simon shot Jesse, hitting and interfering with him (but doing no damage). Sky Spirit and the Crossbow dumped all their shots into Inara and even though they hurt her, they failed to kill her. Those rolls sealed my doom as Inara moved forward and dumped two templates onto Sky Spirit and the Crossbow Brave, knocking them prone but not killing either of them. Jesse then finished the turn by walking up and trying to punch Simon, but failing. Simon was out of range for his half inch melee weapon, so he took a quick-draw shot back and failed to hit Jesse (that's the only thing that could have saved my game at that point).

My dead pile continued to grow:

while Dixon's did not:

Turn 4

Turn 4 Dixon grabbed initiative again and it was cleanup time. Jesse activated with the DC and after Inara grabbed the DC influence, Jesse proceeded to shoot down the remaining 3 models I had.

Final Thoughts

This was a debacle of a game all around. I guess the best lesson one can draw from this is don't become explosive and throw a fit in a game. Clearly there is plenty that can happen in a game to turn what appears to be a "I can't do anything" situation around fairly drastically. On the one hand, I was frustrated by what I perceived as an overwhelming defeatist attitude from Dixon. On the other hand, I am happy he could be convinced to calm down and play through as I think he will be back to play more games.

At some point I will have to get Dixon on the podcast to talk about what he thinks of WWX. Not sure there is much else to discuss here other than to give the advice to avoid many of the things I chose to do in that game.

WWX Mercenaries!!!

One of the things I felt was very cool with the WWX kickstarter was a group of models which were added as mercenaries. Namely, the Firefly crew which Outlaw Miniatures renamed the Wayward 8. My wife and I are both big (huge) fans of Firefly and the movie Serenity, and seeing models based on those characters was fantastic. Eight of the nine characters who crew the Firefly are in the game as playable characters, missing only Shepherd Book (which makes me sad, and makes my friend Dixon very sad!).

"The Wraith"

Outlaw Miniatures went on to do some very cool things with the Mercenaries in WWX. At this date they are not a playable faction, requiring the selection of a Boss from another faction to lead the mercenaries. In addition, all Mercenary models to date are either Sidekicks or Underbosses, plus the Dark Council which comes in as Hired Hands. In addition to the "Wayward 8" (the renamed "NOT-Firefly crew"), Outlaw Miniatures allowed a specific level of kickstarter backer to create their own models. Each of these models was added to the game as a mercenary as well. It's interesting to notice that of the 3 backer-created models, 2 of them seem to be derived from other intellectual property as well. One looks and feels a lot like the Punisher of Marvel Comic fame and the other shares some striking similarity to Scorpion from Mortal Combat.

"Sasha Tanner"

I want to point out that all of the derivative models are incredibly nicely done, both with fantastic sculpts and rules that pay homage to their inspiration. I particularly like the "Cowboy Scorpion" spin that Sasha Tanner brings to the table. I was really happy with the way the model was sculpted, as it allowed me to incorporate some colors which called back to the mortal combat heritage which still maintaining enough presence to be distinctly different and very "Wild West" in aesthetic.

"Marcus Cunningham"

The final backer created model was Marcus Cunningham, who was provided to all kickstarters above a specified pledge level at no cost (the cost being provided by the "mystery backer"). Marcus was one of the first two mercenary models which I built, and was not easy to assemble. After assembling and painting him I actually made the comment (in my first game) that I hoped his rules were horrible so I would not have to use him much. Upon working him into the game and playing with him as part of my posse, Cunningham has become a crucial part of my Warrior Nation posse selection. His rules are fantastic and I have become very happy with how he fits into the crew overall. Happy enough, in fact, to forget how frustrating it was to assemble his body plus 2 arms plus hands and hammer. For those who have not done-so yet, it's a pain to get them all to line up and then glue them together without making a mess!!!

All of this brings us to the Wayward 8. In my case I only have the Wayward 6, as I have not finished painting up Kaylee (K-Free) or Wash (Hicks Kincade). I have them on my painting table and plan to paint them up for completion sake (In addition to Kaylee being my favorite Firefly character), but I am not in a rush overall. The use of those models in the game is very much in line with the inspiring Firefly Character's roles in the show and movie. Both are characters based on supporting the ship (Kaylee as the mechanic and Wash as the pilot) and this is reflected in WWX with character abilities tied to supporting heavy vehicles. As I do not have any heavy vehicles at this point, I would not be able to make good use of those two characters.

This leaves me with the remaining 6 characters. I have only been able to use River in my own posse's so far, and she is fantastic. I have often faced Mal (Marcus Wayward), Zoe (Zarelda Kincade), and Inara (Sierra Icarus). I have twice faced Jayne (Jake Mattia) and once faced Simon (Sun Totem), who play interesting roles when played. Jayne is slow but is really good with his ranged weapons, while Simon brings the interference rule to the table in a truly effective way. Interference "shuts down" most non-warrior nation weapons that are in the game, and Simon is unable to be seen from over 8 inches away while being able to shoot his interference gun 18 inches. He will be a nice little boon to my warrior nation lists.

So let's get to the pictures!

Mal - "Marcus Wayward"

Zoe - "Zarelda Kincade"

Jayne - "Jake Mattia"

Inara - "Sierra Icarus"

Simon - "Sun Totem"

River - "River Flowing"

There we go, the mercenaries. I have an alternate sculpt Dark Council coming shortly, as it was the March $5 model. It looks pretty cool and will add to my existing Dark Council model you see to the left.

That's all for this post. I am working on some more Union models to complete my Union collection. I have Lincoln and his special forces on the painting tray and set to finish up next. After that I am going to finish up my Warrior Nation hired hands and be ready to move onto my Enlightened. The only aberrations to that schedule which I currently see is I will likely paint up Jesse James and Bill Brocius so Dixon has a leader for the Wayward 8. Bill Brocius makes a particularly nice Badger to lead the Firefly crew.

Now I just need to start getting in more games on a regular basis. Hopefully my schedule will start to allow that post-Adepticon!

WWX - Union Models

Wow, February is almost over and it's been a month since I posted on the blog. If I am being critical it's actually been over a month since I posted some of my own content in the form of pictures, battle reports, or opinion pieces. I hope you, dear reader, are assuaged with the explanation that my job has been absolutely insane and contributed for my online absence here.

In the interim I have only gotten a couple games in. I placed 2nd in the recent Netrunner Store Championship at Huzzah, bringing home a nice new play mat and deck box. I also got a couple more games of WWX played, mostly 3 player games with John and I teaching a couple new players. Last on the game up date's is my wife and daughter discovering Zombicide. This has led to a number of games where we have formed up a nice group of 3 survivors and are working our way through the book scenarios.

That's not what your hear to read about or gaze upon though. Based on the title of this blog post, it's not my plan either, so lets dive in. I was speaking ill of Geronimo for the Warrior Nation (in comparison to Sitting Bull) and decided it would be good to get some games in with him. This led to my painting up a couple more Warrior Nation models. You can see the Totem Pole to the left, which provides influence to the Warrior Nation in a similar fashion to the Dark Council member. I also painted up the Crossbow Heavy Weapon brave, who has spirit aim and is a nasty shooting model for my WN. I also painted up the bear and played a couple games with him. My opinion was only reinforced through those games, which does not lessen what a nasty customer he is to deal with. I just find Sitting Bull's abilities (namely Wolf Blood) to be better overall. I wanted to paint Geronimo up as a black bear so Googled a couple images and then set to work. I'm pretty happy with how he came out.

Upon completing my last couple Warrior Nation models I decided to pull out some union troops I had not heard many people talking about. At the point when I started I was missing a couple models I wanted for my Lincoln's Special Forces union posse, so I built out a Grant Firing Squad posse. My Warrior Nation posse is heavily character based and I wanted to switch gears a bit to play around with the hired hands. Grant seemed the way to go as he has abilities to support and "beef up" his hired hands. Leading off the work were the 10 hired hands models, 5 Close Combat and 5 Long Ranged.

I was pretty happy with the sculpts on these models, they each had some nice individual character and were all very different while staying coherent in their style. Some of the models such as the long ranged trooper leaping backwards and the close combat trooper pointing his pistol seem to cry out for some Armor Cast Cinematic effects. I may pick some up in the future to add them on. Adding to my hired hands I painted up the Union Lady of the West, which we will heretofore refer to as Civil War Barbie (see left). I will likely head back at some point in the future and finish up the face by adding some lipstick and possibly make an attempt at painting her eyes, but for now she works well on the table.

Sticking with the plastic models I also assembled both of the union Light Support I received as part of the kickstarter. These are the Union Rocket Pod Trooper (right) and the Union Gatling Gun Trooper (left). I have not yet gotten the Gatling Gun onto the field but with the recent update to his rules adding Steady I am looking forward to future games with him. Steady allows him to treat his big gun as a 1-handed weapon, shooting it in a snap-fire situation along with being able to move and shoot it. The Rocket Pod trooper has hit the field twice now and both times he worked wonderfully. The rocket pod is a long range blast weapon that can deal out some pretty nasty damage. This guy became a priority target for John's snipers in my most recent game, forcing me to spend a fair bit of influence on my armor rolls to attempt keeping him alive.

That works out way through the plastics and moves us onto the resin characters. We open up with Captain Sheridan, based on (I believe) General Philip Sheridan. In WWX, Captain Sheridan is a range finder and has the ability to reload other model's weapons where needed. His best ability is to allow friendly models who start near him to take a free aim action at the start of their activation. When combined with Grant's ability to improve hired hands this makes the posse of union "throw away" troops fairly formidable. Considering WWX Sheridan is only a captain and fills a sidekick role in the game heirachy I kept him in the same uniform as the rest of the troops.

This brings us to one of the Union Underbosses, Major Sherman, based on Union General William Tecumseh Sherman. In WWX he is only a Major working for Grant and has taken on a deep fascination with fire to become "Burning Sherman". His RJ-1027 weapon "Old Reliable" is both a flame thrower and a very nasty long range blast weapon (that still sets you on fire). He has an ability to create a large blast centered on himself as necessary which he is unaffected by. Sherman has become a priority target to remove from the board in both games I have used him. My opponents just have not been happy with his blasts coming down the board as he moved toward their lines. In painting up Sherman I decided to blacken his armor, showing the metal plating only on the edges. I am pretty happy with the effect overall, as it works nicely with his black Calvary hat.

That brings us to the man, General Grant. In the WWX storyline, Grant has been horribly burned by a Dark Council coordinated attack on his house. The same attack kills his family, turning him bitter and vengeful. Grant wears a full mask to cover his burned head and some heavy armor over his uniform. Knowing that senior civil war officers were allowed to pick some of their own clothes for their uniforms I went with a black trench coat for Grant, feeling it fit his overall "Darth Grant" look. Grant has 2 sculpts from the Kickstarter (and a third from post kickstarter), both of which I have. The sculpt to the right is the "original Grant sculpt", which I actually like a fair bit. It's simple and fits Grant and his abilities overall. I kept Grant's armor silver as once I got the base coats down I felt that painting it black would be too much black on the model (considering the coat). I'm fairly happy with the way both models came out (alt Grant is to the left below).

Grant is a nasty character in his own right, being very tough to take down with his armor and wound totals. His weapons are nasty although not terribly long range. I believe his most important and impactful abilities are those that interact with his hired hands. When starting an activation close to Grant, Friendly Hired Hands gain an extra AP that can only be used to shoot with. In addition, when starting close to grant they also pick up the "Best of the Best" rule, which improves their shooting ability overall. When combined with Sheridan's free aim ability this allows a Union Long Range Trooper to take 3 shots with his rifle an activation, hitting on 3's or 4's and ignoring terrain. This makes for a horrifying fusillade to any model coming toward the firing line.

Aside from the friendly Dark Council member who seems to tag along with the union wherever they are that finishes out Grant's Firing Squad.I've played a couple games with the posse so far, playing at the $750-points range. It's certainly a gunline although I have found places for Sherman and two close combat troopers to move up the board and threaten the opponent. Coming from my WN group which has a lot of influence, the lower influence of the union is something I felt right away. This makes the union more reliant on the Dark Council to provide the 2 extra influence per turn he can. I tend to pair the DC up with Sherman and his killers while leaving Grant with Sheridan and the boys at the back of the board laying down covering fire. It's an interesting switch although I think I prefer the close combat close range playstyle of the Warrior nation over this posse. I still plan to play more games to see if it grows on me though.

Cost Comparison: WWX vs Malifaux vs Warmachine

Recently a friend of mine was discussing new games and general mini-wargaming topics with me and caught my attention with a semi-random comment. His claim was that the new Wild West Exodus (WWX) models and game were "awfully expensive" for what you get. This intrigued me, as I was involved in the kickstarter and had not really thought about the larger release cost of the game. Furthermore, I had picked up a couple random figures and did not feel they were overly expensive. I did realize I had no real idea how WWX compared on price to other games, so I thought I would go do some research (as I tend to do).

I wanted to compare somewhat similar games which is how I settled on Warmachine, WWX, and Malifaux. All three are using plastic or plastic and resin figures currently. Malifaux is aiming to replace thier metal line with plastic so I thought that was a good comparison. Beyond that, all three have what I would consider "reasonable" starters which should be able to get you to a playable level of force with only the starter box. They are also all within the Skirmish to Squad based game size, which I believe makes them comparable.

Having my choices limited down and the approach I wanted to use for comparison in mind I set out to gather some information and compare away.

Starter Sets

All three game systems sell single player starter sets. Warmachine and Malifaux contain all plastic models in their starters while WWX contains a mix of plastic and resin. I ranked them cheapest to most expensive with commentary.

Malifaux

Malifaux has a range of prices on their plastic starters, running from $35 through $45 in price. They all contain generally the same number of models with the count coming to 6 models in the starters. The Guild Judgement starter that I selected has 6 models and is at the top of the price range, coming in at $45. The models are all "man sized" models on 30mm bases and can be fielded in a Malifaux game for 33 points (including SS Pool but not counting the additional upgrades). The basic Malifaux game for M2E is recommended to be played at 50 points, so this comes in a bit shy. It can probably be brought up to snuff by adding in an additional model or adding a couple upgrades overall. However, it is likely to be in the same points limit as other plastic starter boxes.

Warmachine

Warmachine uses a single price for all of their starter sets, $49.99 (essentially $50). I did find it interesting that through the different starters the number of models in the starter ranged from between three plastic models and five plastic models. All the of Warmachine starters had at least one and often more large base (40mm or 50mm) models and only one to four "man sized" 30mm model in the set.  The Cryx starter had the largest number of models in the starter set of all the Warmachine starters, totaling up at 5 models. This starter totals up a 14 point force by the Warmachine system. Warmachine is commonly played at 50 points, leaving a tremendous amount of room to add more models before getting to the general "playable level". Once again, starter to starter box games will generally be at the same point level (within a couple points overall).

Wild West Exodus

WWX uses a single price for all thier currently released starters in the same fashion as Warmachine. This comes in at the most expensive starter set, ringing up to a total of $69.99 (essentially $70). All of the WWX starters have the same number of models in them, totaling 13 plastic and resin models. They are generally man sized (30mm) with the one current exception the Warrior Nation. The 13 models are the same profile across the available factions, including a Boss, Sidekick, Infantry Light Support, 5 Long Ranged hired Hands, and 5 Close Combat Hired Hands. The set pictures comes to a total of $595-points for hiring your posse. WWX is played at a number of defined levels, with $500-points and $750-points laid out as the skirmish levels and $1250-points currently being discussed for the tournament level. This leaves you in fairly good standing to play the game at a skirmish level and all the boxes are fairly well balanced against each other, with Enlightened as the aberration at $450-points for the starter box.

Groups of Models

All three game systems sell sets of multiple models for thier game which are produced in plastic. In all cases that I looked at I aimed to compare small based (30mm) models in sets.

Malifaux

Malifaux has set's of 3 models for some of thier repatable characters in the game. The Rotten Belle's are not only iconic Malifaux models but fit the theme of undead-like models across the three game systems. Malifaux had the cheapest set for a "group of models" box, but also had the smallest number of models. This was a tough comparison as they would be the most expensive if the numbers were similar. For this 3 model set Malifaux runs $21, coming in at a total of $7 per model.

Wild West Exodus

WWX came in the middle of the pack on a "group of models" purchase with a fairly standard price of $45.99 for 10 models. WWX had the most standard pricing and selection across their "group of models" selection, with $45.99 as the price across the factions. The Hired Hands set's for all factions come with 10 models in the box, bringing the per-model cost to the lowest point of $4.60 per model. The set pictured stuck with the undead theme, although the other hired hands set's are more detailed than the undead abominations pictures.

Warmachine

Warmachine had the highest price for a "group of models" purchase, coming in at $49.99. This is also a set of 10 models, bringing the per model total to $5.00 per model. This places them right in the middle when it comes to a per-model cost comparison when breaking up the group of models. Warmachines plastic squads are very detailed and compare equally with both other game systems.

Single Model Comparison

There was no simple way to do a direct single model comparison between the three games. Wyrd is currently not remotely started with converting their metal single models over to plastic, throwing the overall price comparison off. Warmachine still uses a mix of metal and plastic across thier range and Wild West Exodous is solidly using resin or plastic for their single models. Looking through the websites for all three games it appears that the general cost of a single man-sized model will range between $11 and $20. The price ranges and selections are fairly consistent across all three games, with nothing jumping out wildly as out of "the ordinary".

Conclusion

When comparing the three game systems I have come to the following conclusion (for myself).

Cheapest (kind of): It appears to me that Malifaux is the cheapest game system to get started in and pay at a basic "community" level. It certainly has the least models and fills in truly as a skirmish game. The rating as cheapest comes directly from the reduced number of models necessary to play, as on average Malifaux has the most expensive models when looking at the cost for a "general man sized model". Malifaux's starter set averaged $7.50 per model, their "group of model" single model cost stayed consistent at $7 per model,  then their single model was in the same range as the other games.

Middle (essentially): WWX comes in the middle of the road overall. While thier starter box was more expensive overall in raw dollars spent, it's per model cost of $5.38 per model was the lowest. The "group of model" single model cost of $4.60 per model dropped that average even lower, and the single models stayed in the same range as the other two games. WWX came in fairly close to being able to play at an acceptable level straight from their starter, and seems to be only slightly more than Malifaux for the least expansion necessary to get to a "regular" play level.

Most Expensive (really): Warmachine is pretty clearly the most expensive game of the three games compared. While the starter set rated in the middle for raw dollars spent, the per model cost was the highest at $10 per model. This price gets even steeper if you choose the 3 model starter set, bringing the per model cost to almost $17 per model. The $5 "group of models" single model cost goes a ways to balancing out the starter set costs, but then single models still sit in the same range with the other two games. What makes Warmachine so much more expensive is the simple distance of expansion necessary to get to the "publicly common" play level of 50 points. It requires a lot more buying in Warmachine to get to that level than either of the other two games.

Final Thoughts

Overall this was an interesting exercise for me, especially since I started without a strong expectation of what I would find. I hope that it's helpful for everyone reading this as well. I believe that over time players will spend similar amounts on miniature games regardless of the initial costs. The big question will be, what is the "bang for your buck" for that money spent. This is one of the motivators for my departure from GW games, as I no longer felt a positive "bang for my buck" in those games. I think in all three of these systems players will find once they reach a pretty common level they will gain the same "bang for their buck" regardless of the system.